Within the next three weeks, women in Barbados should have access to even more advanced breast examination equipment, which cannot only detect but biopsy any irregularities in the breast.
Chairperson of the Barbados Breast Screening Programme, Dr Shirley Jhagroo, said that the Breast Screening Clinic was securing a new ultrasound machine that can investigate the areas the mammogram is unable to detect. Jhagroo said mammograms do not adequately investigate dense breast tissue.
Dr Jhagroo was speaking at Lammings hard court in St Joseph, where hundreds of individuals gathered for a ceremony before a walk for breast cancer awareness for Felicia Leacock, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. She said that at present the technology is necessary since 65 to 68 per cent of women here, especially among the younger ones, have dense breast tissue.
She said that once the machine was in place, allowing Barbados to provide a service at the level of the best breast clinics in the United States and Britain, an interventional breast radiologist would be coming to the island twice per month to perform the procedures. (LK)
