New Zealand extends digital mammography:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Digital mammography was praised by New Zealand's health minister Pete Hodgson at the opening of a NZ$3.8m (US$2.8m) facility in Dunedin (the second-largest city in the South Island) yesterday. It will be the country's second such facility. Benefits listed by Mr Hodgson include: shorter screening process; faster results; and electronically transferable images. Each year, New Zealand provides 150,000 free mammograms to women between the ages of 45-69 under the national programme BreastScreen Aotearoa, and the number of women getting screened is rising. Breast cancer deaths stand at around 630 annually, but Mr Hodgson said that screening reduces the chance of death for women between the ages of 45 and 69 by 20-35%. At the same launch event, a new mobile breast screening can was added to the programme's fleet of 10.