HCM City hospital gets new tech

HCM City (VNA) – Hung Vuong Obstetrics Hospital in HCM City has got a digital mammography machine, the first public hospital in the city to use one, a top city health official said.

Tang Chi Thuong, Deputy Director of the Department of Health, said the modern machine would make improve diagnosis and make it safer, and enhance the quality of treatment.

Breast cancer is one of the most common diseases treated at the city’s Oncology Hospital, he said.

Obstetrics hospitals should set up departments to treat breast cancer to reduce the huge overload on the Oncology Hospital, he added.

The advantages of digital mammography are that digital images can be manipulated for a better view and digital mammograms deliver smaller amounts of radiation than film-screen mammograms do, Le Thi Quynh Ha, head of Hung Vuong’s diagnostic imaging department, said.

With digital mammography, the images are recorded directly in a computer and can be transmitted electronically to other hospitals, she said.

Mammography is the most common screening test for breast cancer, Hoang Thi Diem Tuyet, said the hospital’s Director.

A mammogram can detect breast cancer in 90 percent of women with the disease if they are aged more than 50, Tuyet said

In Vietnam, around 15,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, she said.

More than 90 percent diagnosed at the earliest stage survive for more than five years, she added.-VNA