Public hospital in France joins the fight against osteoporosis: French women to benefit from combined mammography and osteoporosis examinations

Argenteuil, outside Paris in France, a prominent public hospital is now initiating a pilot project offering women to combine their mammography examination with osteoporosis screening in a single examination. The combined assessment of bone health is made possible by Sectra’s patented online service, Sectra OneScreen. Argenteuil is the first hospital in the national mammography screening program in France to offer women this opportunity in combination with mammography.

Post-menopausal women comprise a risk group for osteoporosis, one of the most painful and costly diseases in the world. In severe cases, osteoporosis can cause fractures which, in turn, can cause great suffering and, at worst, death.

“I have always been interested in finding an effective method that enables early and easy identification of osteoporosis in a large population of women aged 50 and over. So when I heard about SectraOneScreen, I was captivated”, says Dr Lévy-Weil, head of the Rheumatology department at Argenteuil. “The ability to conduct screening to identify osteoporosis at the same time as mammography will mean that many women with bone fragility can be detected earlier and thus be provided with optimal bone health care for the future. It represents a real advantage in the global prevention of osteoporosis in women over 50 years old.”

With Sectra’s service, patients at high risk of fracture can be identified and preventive care can be initiated. Additionally, Sectra’s service helps clinics identify women who should have their bone health (Bone Mineral Density, BMD) further investigated using a DXA scanner.

About Sectra OneScreen

Osteoporosis is a heavily under-diagnosed disease and a simple method for identifying patients requiring treatment is needed. The Sectra OneScreen online service is a cost-efficient solution for identifying patients at risk of osteoporosis. The service is well suited to the mammography workflow. After the four breast images included in the mammography examination, an image of the hand is acquired using the same radiology equipment. Since the woman is already standing by the modality, this adds no more than 30 seconds to the examination time. With the standard X-ray image of the hand, the women’s bone health (Bone Mineral Density, BMD) is analyzed using Sectra’s online service.

Clinics in Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, France and the UK have introduced Sectra OneScreen into their mammography service.

Benefits women, mammography clinics and society

The benefits of using Sectra’s online service to identify patients at risk of osteoporosis include:

• Allowing women to assess and take control of their bone health, thereby avoiding fractures and unnecessary suffering.
• Identification of women at high risk of fractures, meaning that treatment or further investigation using DXA scanning can be initiated.
• The woman only needs to visit once for two examinations.
• Seamless integration into the regular mammography workflow. Possibility of combining two examinations in one visit, adding only 30 seconds per woman.
• No radiologist time needed. The procedure is based on FDA and CE-approved automatic image analysis done “in the cloud” while preserving patient integrity.
• No need for new hardware – no major initial investment. Can be used with all major digital mammography devices.
• Improvement of the bottom line for clinics and hospitals by doing more on the same visit. Also generates new and more patients for existing DXA systems.
• Reduction in healthcare costs for insurance companies and society.

About osteoporosis

• Some 200 million people are estimated to suffer from osteoporosis.
• The disease is caused by an imbalance in the remodeling of the skeleton, which in turn can be caused, for example, by an unhealthy lifestyle, genetic factors or drugs used to treat other diseases.
• Nine million osteoporosis-related fractures, primarily radio carpal, hip and vertebra fractures occur annually.
• Affects one in three women, and one in five men, over the age of 50.
• One of the diseases that causes the highest economic burden for healthcare.

Source: International Osteoporosis Foundation http://www.iofbonehealth.org/

About Sectra
Sectra develops and sells IT systems and services for radiology, women’s health, orthopaedics and rheumatology. More than 1,400 hospitals, clinics and imaging centers worldwide use the systems daily, together performing over 70 million radiology examinations annually. This makes Sectra one of the world-leading companies within systems for handling digital radiology images. In Scandinavia, Sectra is the market leader with more than 50% of all film-free installations. Sectra’s systems have been installed in North America, Scandinavia and most major countries in Europe and the Far East.

Sectra was founded in 1978 and has its roots in Linköping University in Sweden. The company’s business operation includes cutting-edge products and services within the niche segments of medical systems and secure communication systems. Sectra has offices in 12 countries and operates through partners worldwide. Sales in the 2011/2012 fiscal year totaled SEK 823 million. The Sectra share is quoted on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm AB exchange. For more information, visit www.sectra.com