How is the Siemens Novation Digital Mammography different than older techniques?
• The majority of facilities in the U.S. are still performing film mammography, which uses x-ray to darken a film by a chemical process in the film emulsion. The first FDA approved digital mammography, manufactured by GE and released in the year 2000, converts x-ray into light, and then light into electrons to create a digital file, which can be printed on film or viewed on a high resolution monitor. The second approved digital system by Fisher Imaging uses an improved detector to directly convert x-ray to electrical signal. The detector is a thin strip which is scanned across the breast. Third generation digital mammography uses this same detector material but in a full-field, allowing instantaneous imaging of the entire breast. Siemens and several other companies are releasing systems with this design. The original GE and Fisher units are still in use, however, the Fisher system is no longer manufactured. Although it was the least expensive of the digital technologies because of the
