2023-10-13 16:31:03
In Charente-Maritime, you have to wait up to six months or more to get an appointment for a mammogram. The department has lost 22% of its radiologists in 15 years and today has 33 of these specialists spread across 13 centers.
“It’s been four or five years since I stopped prevention”
Jean-Marie Piot, president of thedepartmental branch of the League once morest Cancerwarns: “There is a lack of screening possibilities. Currently, we see that in certain areas of the department in particular it is very complicated. We are trying to remedy this in Saint-Jean-d’Angély or even in Saintes, towns which will acquire a mammograph.“In these areas, a third of women are screened, compared to an average of half in the department. A worrying delay when Early treatment of the disease leads to a cure in 9 out of 10 cases.
Anne, 55, knows these figures well: her mother, her aunt, almost half of the women in her family were affected by the disease. However, she admits to having let her guard down: “ÇIt’s been four or five years since I stopped prevention, due to not being able to find appointments within a reasonable time frame*.*”
“My difficulty was that I have a very large chest, it’s not at all an exam that is painless – even if it’s supposed to be the case. When done at the wrong time in the cycle, it can be horrendous in terms of pain.“, she explains. Since menopause, she no longer experiences breast congestion and will therefore resume monitoring.
Train more radiologists
L’Regional Health Agency (ARS) believes that there are enough radiologists in the department. Laurent Flament, director of the departmental branch, explains: “There are enough radiologists in general but there are not enough practicing radiologists doing mammography. More collective and general participation on the part of radiologists is needed.”
Fewer young interns specializing in mammograms is also what Annick Gombert, radiologist at IRSA, the imaging and radiology center in La Rochelle and Rochefort, notes: “We find a lot of cancers, it’s hard to announce. It can be off-putting. The more it goes, the more it’s complicated for us to find young people trained in mammography and who wish to do so.“The ARS claims to be”in constant dialogue” with the profession to train more specialists.
Artificial intelligence
Another avenue considered by the ARS: making greater use of artificial intelligence (AI). “Next year we should be able to experience the first reading of a mammogram with artificial intelligence“, specifies Laurent Flament. Annick Gombert agrees: “For mammograms in sparse breasts, in a lady with no previous history, AI will surely help us to go faster.” All avenues deserve to be explored for this radiologist who sees around twenty patients per day.
However, there is no question of eliminating humans by machines. “LIRSA’s two brand new mammographs are barely profitable due to lack of use“, says Annick Gombert. Jean-Marie Piot, of the League Against Cancer, is more doubtful: “Artificial intelligence is not the key to everything.“
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