When Sonja Ancrile takes a woman's picture, the woman rarely smiles.
To get the best shot, Ancrile, a mammography technician at Edward White Hospital in St. Petersburg, must squish the woman's breast between two plates to keep it immobile and to expose more of the tissue to the camera.
The greater the pressure, the better the picture.
But the pain caused by that compression is one of the key reasons women say they do not get mammograms, which are recommended annually beginning at age 40 to screen for breast cancer.
Ancrile says she's glad she can finally offer some comfort: A foam cushion placed between the breast and the metal plate called Woman's Touch MammoPad. Edward White has provided the MammoPad free to patients for about seven months.
"Anything we can do to get women to take care of themselves," Ancrile says.
About 40 percent of women older than 40 in the United States do not comply with the American Cancer Society's recommendation for an annual or biennial screening.
Many are afraid they will hear bad news, although only one to two mammograms out of every 1,000 lead to a diagnosis of cancer.
Many say it's just too painful.
A study published in 2002 in Radiology found that more than half of women getting mammograms reported moderate to extreme discomfort. Other research shows that those who do not get regular screenings overwhelmingly cite pain as the reason.
"They're just so incredibly painful," says Sheila Graham of St. Petersburg, who has been screened annually for about 10 years.
At her last mammogram in March at Edward White, she says she was thrilled with the difference.
"It's a whole lot more comfortable than it was before," Graham says of using MammoPad.
Nationwide, more than 2-million women have used the product at 1,500 facilities since it was approved by the FDA in 2001, says Liz Dowling, spokeswoman for manufacturer BioLucent Inc.
It adds about $5 to the cost of a $90 to $120 mammogram.
The California company reports that three out of four mammography patients say the MammoPad significantly reduced discomfort. To win FDA approval, BioLucent had to show that the foam, invented by a female surgeon and about the dimensions of a computer mouse pad, does not interfere with the clarity of X-ray images.
The cushion is especially beneficial for women who have had cancer or have scar tissue, making their breasts more tender, says Dowling.
During a mammogram, the breast is compressed vertically and horizontally to layer tissue for a better view of any abnormalities, cysts or tumors. Ancrile says MammoPad covers the metal bottom plate (the top plate is typically plastic) and cushions the metal edge pushed against a woman's rib cage.
St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg and Regional Diagnostic Imaging Center at Bayonet Point Hospital in Hudson, among others, offer MammoPad to their patients.
