Ask the Expert

Alicia Daniels, MD

Southern Ocean County Hospital would like to thank everyone who e-mailed questions for this edition of Ask-The-Expert and would like to especially thank Dr. Alicia Daniels for taking part in the program.

Dr. Daniel's answers will be informational only and should not be used as a diagnosis or for treatment. Please talk to your physician about official diagnosis of your condition and treatment.

October: Digital Mammography

Question 1
I see SOCH now offers Digital Mammography. I am 62 and heavy, with large breasts. My bra size is 44 D. I was told once that digital mamog. was not for me due to being over a size B bra cup, and that regular film mamog. was best for me, due to the pieceing together of the digitgal film, and that doing this piecing could cause a missed malignancy. But the regular film could fit my entire breast image on one sheet as opposed to several on the digital film. Is this correct? Should I have the older film mamog. or should I do the digital? Can new digital mamog. be compared to the older film mamog. to find malignancies? Thank you very much.

Older digital units had smaller detectors. Newer models such as Soch's unit have larger detectors so they can image larger breasts. Excessively large breasts will still have to be "pieced" together for both analog or digital but may actually have less images on digital because of the new detector sizes.

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