A visiting medical professor has endorsed a mammoth effort to raise funds towards the $700,000 needed to buy two state-of-the-art digital mammography imaging machines to help combat breast cancer.

Earlier this month 2,000 people donned pink T-shirts and walked 5k around Hamilton with the aim of bringing the cutting edge technology to the Island.

A leading expert in the field Dr. Emily Conant has made a trip to the Island to explain the benefits of digital mammography imaging compared to traditional film imaging and underline why the current fund-raising efforts of the Bermuda TB, Cancer and Health Association are so important.

It has taken decades to perfect digital imaging equipment to such a degree that it can comprehensively do a full breast scan with the detail needed to spot cancers often hidden away deep within the tissue.

But compared with regular mammography screening the digital version takes diagnosis to a new level, according to Dr. Conant, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

She gave a public talk in Bermuda on the benefits and advances in breast imaging and screening particularly since the advent of digital mammography.

?Some of the cancers are hidden away. Digital mammography is a new twist on mammography. It is like comparing analogue (film) camera with a digital camera,? she explained.

With the film camera there is always the risk of under- and over-exposing an image or having the focus slightly out. But with a digital camera an image can be viewed instantly for quality and further enhanced and probed electronically to gain more and more detail.

?The imaging information can be worked through with computers electronically to look through it. We can open windows at different levels,? explained Dr. Conant.

The greater effectiveness of digital mammography over film mammography has been shown by the results of a US digital imaging mammography screening trial where 28 percent more cancers were detected in women aged 50 and younger, premenopausal and perimenopausal women and those with dense breasts.

?It has impacted a lot of woman. Some of the cancers were very large and they were killer cancers that you don?t want to wait before you treat them.?

The next step on from digital mammography is the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultra-sound to search even further for cancers, but these are selective processes. At the University of Pennsylvania women are assessed by their profile, risk factors and family history and then the screening is tailored to their needs, said Dr. Conant.

Another benefit of having a digital image rather than a film image is the ability to make multiple copies and for it to be sent electronically to specialists on Island and overseas. Being a digital image it does not run the risk of having its surface damaged and information obscured or lost by the wear and tear of handling.

?Because it is an electronically stored image we can do all sorts of advanced imaging processes, such as creating a three-dimensional image of the breast that may eventually be a competitor to MRI but at a lower cost,? said Dr. Conant.

?The images can also be beamed overseas for a second opinion.?

Digital imaging does away with the cost of developing and processing mammography film plates, the cost and space requirements of storing film transparencies, and is significantly quicker in terms of producing a mammography image that can be viewed immediately on a screen as soon as it is taken rather than having to wait for a film to be developed using chemicals and the possibility of repeating the process if the image is blurred.

?There are many considerations that make it more economical and it is the cutting-edge technology at the moment,? said Dr. Conant.

However, as good as digital mammography is, women should not wait for it to arrive on the Island before having their mammographs done.

Dr. Conant advocates all women over 40 have a yearly mammography using the current film process if that is all that is available rather than not have a mammography, because the screening often picks up the earliest signs of a developing cancer that can more successfully treated.

Bermuda TB, Cancer and Health Association brought Dr. Conant to the Island to give a public talk.

The Association is behind the fund-raising push to raise $700,000 so that it can purchase two digital mammography machines for Bermuda.

The charity walk earlier this month is expected to have collected more than $200,000, further monies will be raised through public donations in collection tins at stores and coffee shops, a ?denim day? and a ?Girls Night In? event.

Elsewhere Keith?s Kitchen held a special fry-up to raise money and Walker Christopher jewellers has weighted in with a discount promotion on items containing the colour pink during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Pauline Girling, of Bermuda TB, Cancer and Heath Association said: ?It is going to take at least two years, but we are optimistic at this stage.

?It is a huge incentive to provide this level of care to the Island.?