Digital Pen Cuts Mammogram Analysis From Hours To Minutes In France

The Digital Pen & Paper technology has achieved another tremendous success in reducing waiting lists for breast cancer screening by significantly shortening the time it takes to analyze mammograms. The digital pen has been implemented in France’s “Plan Cancer” program to combat this growing public health concern.

Since 2003, France offered a systematic and organized breast cancer screening for women between the age of 50 and 74 contributing to regularity of screening tests. An alarming 40,000+ new breast cancer cases reported each year inspiring the program which participates are invited to testing via a mammography ever other year. A women’s anxiety rises with waiting for breast cancer results.

“The Digital Pen & Paper provides a way to get medical information quickly into our data base and this increases productivity by cutting down the time used to assess all that we have to do,” says Richard Lepec, MD, a public health epidemiologist in the southwest midi-Pyrénées department of Haute Garonne. “For the patient, there is less waiting time and that’s the main point.”

While women with positive breast cancer results have received quick notification, women with negative results used to wait three to four weeks for mammogram results. French law requires two mammogram interpretations when results are negative to ensure patient health and safety.

The Digital Pen & Paper is integrated with NeoScope information transfer software developed by EpiConcept, headquartered in Paris, supporting the second review, serving as a mammogram x-ray review and data transmitter thereby effectively communicated in five to seven days negative results.

A radiologist and then a second expert review the collected data thus fulfilling France’s mandated second examination. The expert reviews the examining radiologist’s notes and scrutinizes the mammogram, using the digital pen capabilities. The pen remembers what is written or drawn with help from a digital camera, and this data is transmitted back via Bluetooth/USB to a PC or back-end server where character recognition is performed on it. Normal turnaround times of up to three hours were reduced to less than 30 minutes. This means that breast cancer screening centres using the digital pen will be ready for the second stage of France’s national ‘Plan Cancer’ program, set to start early in 2008.

The previous procedure used to be performed by administrative staff without any medical training, and was prone to errors - a risk that has been virtually eliminated by the use of Digital Pen & Paper (DP&P). A visual check of the digital forms is now only required in less than five per cent of cases, giving the DP&P-based solution an accuracy of more than 95 per cent.

Faster processing of the results means that screening centres can meet the legal requirement of sending out results within two weeks of the examination, and schedule new appointments more quickly.

One of the health centres that has implemented DP&P technology is in the French Département of Haute Garonne. Dr Lepec, commented: “For us, the time reduction that the digital technology has brought us means that we can initiate the new screening program earlier. After 15 months’ experience of DP&P technology, the data transfer has become almost 100 percent reliable. No working routines have been changed and the system has been functioning without interruption.”

The digital pen is now used in 12 of France’s 90 Departments. This year alone, around 200,000 mammograms have been performed with the help of DP&P technology in France. On average, each Department runs 30,000 breast cancer scans every year. The long-term objective is to equip the 45 Departments who perform the most scans with DP&P technology.