To the Editor:
Mr. Saltzberg’s article on 3D mammography (Dec. 3, “Hospital seeks cutting-edge 3D mammography unit”) was nicely written, but somewhat incomplete. I thought that your readers might be interested in a further connection of “3D mammography” to the Island.
My family has had a home in Oak Bluffs since 1978. I actually first conceived of 3D mammography that same year, and finally, with my development team at the Massachusetts General Hospital, was able to first confirm its value in 1992. Its real name is digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT). I spent many summers looking across Lagoon Pond working out the issues needed to provide women with this improved method of finding breast cancer earlier. Although General Electric licensed DBT from the Massachusetts General Hospital, which holds my patent, I also convinced Hologic and Siemens of the importance of DBT, and helped them to develop their technology.
The death rate from breast cancer had been unchanged for 50 years until mammography screening began in the mid-1980s. Soon after, the death rate began to fall, and each year there are more than 30 percent fewer women dying from breast cancer as a result of screening. Therapy has improved, but therapy saves lives when breast cancer is found earlier.
Mammography is not perfect. It does not find all cancers, and does not find all cancers early enough to result in a cure, but thousands of lives are saved each year due to screening. We all hope for a cure, or a safe way to prevent breast cancer, but none is on the horizon. Mammography screening is saving lives, and women should be encouraged to participate in annual screening beginning at the age of 40.
I invented DBT to solve some of the problems with conventional mammography, and studies have shown that it is a better mammogram. As Mr. Saltzberg has written, it is fulfilling the hopes that I had for it when I first thought of doing it back in 1978, by detecting more cancers earlier, while reducing the recall rates.
In some sense DBT was invented and developed, in part, on Martha’s Vineyard.
Daniel B. Kopans, M.D.
Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School
Waban