Agfa assists in large-scale breast screenings in China

Agfa has contributed the first mobile screening unit fully equipped with the company's mammography imaging systems to the Chinese Ministry of Health project One Million Women Project.  The system will travel around China to screen women living in remote areas of the country, Agfa said.

The Chinese Ministry of Health aims through this project to screening one million Chinese women for breast diseases within two years. In order to accomplish this, 160 screening sites will be established across the county, with 110 units installed in existing hospitals and 50 units operating as mobile diagnosis centers.

The One Million Women Project, which was launched on April 18th,  is sponsored by Vice-Premier Wu Yi, and the Chinese Women's Association, chaired by Ms Gu Xiuliang, the vice president of the People's Congress.

Agfa will equip the mobile screening centers with its mammography imaging products which includes digital x-ray image processing and high resolution medical imagers. Additionally, the company is donating a mobile screening unit to the project, fully equipped with its mammography technology.

The program is being coordinated from the One Million Women Project office in Beijing, which will monitor the functioning of the program and ensure compliance with strict quality procedures.

In March 2005, the first mammography symposium was set up in Beijing, in cooperation with the American Cancer Society and experts from the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL). In June 2005, a team from the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL) will train a team of Chinese experts on the medical breast disease, Agfa said.

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