Breast Imaging

The growth of the mammography service at UMass Memorial began with the arrival of Dr. Edward Smith in 1980 as the second Chair of the department. He brought with him Dr. Carl D'Orsi as Vice Chair and Director of  Breast Imaging. The section's volume grew consistently over time and additional mammographers were recruited to handle the volume of imaging and procedures. The Breast Imaging Division has been very active in clinical and medical physics research over the years. In the late 1990’s, the department was awarded a grant from the Department of Defense to compare full-field digital mammography and screen-film mammography for the detection of breast cancer in a screening population.  This was a collaborative effort between UMass, the University of Colorado and General Electric. This research ushered the new era of digital mammography that is now the gold standard.  With the participation of radiologists from this Division as expert readers, the clinical data was used by General Electric to obtain FDA approval of the first digital mammography system in the United States.      

Workload:
We are a high volume comprehensive Breast Imaging Division that performs approximately 43,000 examinations annually between our four campuses. Approximately 26,500 screening examinations, 7,000 diagnostic studies, 5,000 ultrasound examinations, 2,500 interventional procedures (includes stereotactic, ultrasound, MRI guided biopsies, needle localization prior to surgical excision and sentinel node injections) and 500 MR breast examination studies are interpreted annually. In addition, mammograms are performed at Tri-River and Barre facilities affiliated to the UMass group and are also read by our specialists.