LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — October is breast cancer awareness month. Each year in the United States, about 255,000 women get breast cancer and 42,000 women die from the disease, according to the CDC.
Early detection is key and technology has made the process quick and easy.
Now, CHI St. Vincent is using that technology to help women across central Arkansas.
“The patients will enter through this door here right around the corner have a seat in this little intake area,” Kathy Davidson said as she toured us through the renovated mobile mammography unit from the CHI St. Vincent Breast Center. “It's the same unit we use at the breast center the same technology same imaging.”
Then there’s the 3-D mammography, which is so amazing that its benefits are stenciled on the pink van. It reads: 3-D Mammograms, detecting the smallest tumors earlier.
“That's our goal,” Davidson said. “That's our number one goal.
3-D on wheels in the pink unit that travels central and southwest Arkansas
“We'll travel two and half to three hours from Hot Springs if we need to,” Davidson said.
That’s good news for people like Rita Risner. As a public school nurse, she sees the value in screenings, but she lives 40 miles from Hot Springs.
“Limited sick days, we always try to use them wisely and at the time I started with the mobile unit I was raising two daughters,” Risner said.
“It's like the breast center just picked up and came to her town,” Davidson said.
And when it comes to the front door, reassurance and confidence spread by a pink van.
“They feel like they're obligated a little bit more to take advantage of it when you're bringing it to them,” Davidson said.
“It's great to have community-based healthcare no matter where you are,” Risner said.
Most breast cancers are found in women who are 50 years old or older, but breast cancer also affects younger women. It's just another reason to make an appointment to get checked out.