Dose management: an essential tool in breast screening. Feedback and experience from The Lega Italiana per la Lotta Contro i Tumori
Dose management: an essential tool in breast screening.
Feedback and experience from The Lega Italiana per la Lotta Contro i Tumori
Who is LILT?
The Lega Italiana per la Lotta Contro i Tumori (Italian League for the Fight against Cancer), also known as LILT, is a leading Italian organisation dedicated to the fight against cancer. Based in Milan, LILT has been at the forefront of cancer research, prevention and patient support for several decades.
LILT aims to promote prevention and early diagnosis, which are fundamental in the fight against cancer. Its outpatient clinics are staffed by doctors and professionals from the most highly qualified oncology centres in the region, and are equipped with state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment.
LILT centers guarantee short waiting times and are widely spread across the Milan, Monza and Brianza regions.
Dose management in screening, not as easy as it seems
Mammography screening is a very powerful weapon in the fight against cancer. But we must not forget that X-rays that are not configured as they should be can also trigger cancer, particularly in certain fragile parts of the body such as the breast. That's why dose control is absolutely essential and an important part of this project.
“Our requirement was not only monitoring the dose classification, but the exact figure dispensed for each patient, which focuses on two aspects: ethical and regulatory. Indeed, attention to patient health has always been at the heart of our organisation. In addition, the ATS Regione Lombardia asked us to monitor the actual dose delivered for each examination, using monthly statistics." Says the medical director of LILT.
This collaboration was a challenge for the Intuitus team who had to make specific adaptations for the operation of its first Italian site. Specific indicators had to be developed. But more importantly, LILT is a multi-sites organisation that uses mammography devices from different vendors. Furthermore, some modalities weren’t supporting the classical standard in terms of dose information. The INTUITUS team had to extract the correct information, unify the data and display the result in a coherent and readable way.
A real partnership
“We have reviewed the various solutions available on the market, and we finally opted for Intuitus/DACS from Telemis, which is already our PACS supplier, because they were the best qualified to meet our current needs. Above all, their team is a reliable partner who supports us throughout the whole process. Intuitus DACS is an extremely flexible tool that allows us to make changes even post-installation. At present, we extract statistics/graphs concerning the doses of ionising radiation received by the patient, but we have the possibility of integrating and extrapolating other data without incurring additional costs.” Adds the medical director of LILT.
This first Italian deal was also interesting for Telemis : “We need to unify and display the information in a clean and readable way. Some modalities are not supporting the classical IT standards in terms of dose information. Therefore, we had to develop specific pieces of software to be able to extract the right information.
This project being our first DACS installation in Italy, it implies that some specific indicators had to be developed and displayed accordingly.” Says Bruno Piscaglia, Head of New Products.