Breast Center
St. Luke's Breast Center is dedicated to provide women with the highest level of breast care. The Center offers a comprehensive and state-of-the-art breast imaging technologies that will cater to all patients, offering a full spectrum of clinical and support services, from screening and diagnosis to treatment and counselling. It provides innovative, integrated, high quality and cost-effective care. Patients who visit the Breast Center will be able to get imaging procedures faster, easier and more comfortable – from scheduling appointments to providing definitive timely results.
The Breast Center stands at the forefront of breast cancer treatment and research. For breast cancer screening, it provides patients the access to the most advanced imaging technology- the 3D mammography, also known as digital breast tomosynthesis, which been shown to have increased detection rate and less recall rate compared to the conventional 2D digital mammography. For women with high risk for breast cancer and dense breast, screening can be complemented with breast MRI with a dedicated breast coil and interpreted by our highly-trained breast radiologists.
Diagnostic procedures being offered include Fine Needle Aspiration, Core Needle biopsy, Stereotactic breast biopsy, Needle Localization procedures, and minimally invasive percutaneous excision biopsies. A state-of-the-art equipment available only at SLMC Breast Center is the prone stereotactic breast biopsy system, an innovative, minimally invasive biopsy device that is expected to significantly expand women’s access and choice of a biopsy procedure. It facilitates a fast, highly accurate diagnosis of primarily mammography-detected suspicious microcalcifications with minimal tissue trauma and patient discomfort. For small breast masses, the minimally invasive percutaneous vacuum-assisted core biopsy system can be used to excise the lesion without the need for an open surgery.
Quality assurance and patient safety is an utmost concern of St. Luke’s. The Center implements a double reading of all screening and diagnostic mammography and breast ultrasound. Images are interpreted independently by 2 radiologists and any discrepancy will be settled with a third radiologist prior to release of the official report. In addition, a regular peer review is also being conducted to analyse the differences in reading. Another quality assurance measure being implemented is the regular audit of all the biopsies done in the center with attendance of the breast surgeons, breast radiologists and the technicians of the center together with the dedicated breast pathologist to correlate the images and the pathology of the lesion.
The Breast Center adopts a patient-centered and multidisciplinary approach that adheres to international standards of care. SLMC Breast Center is the only center in the country that has been awarded the gold seal of accreditation by the American College of Radiology for its Mammography, Breast Ultrasound and Stereotactic Biopsy. This gold seal ensures that the equipment meets the highest standard of image quality and patient safety and that the facility meets the ACR Practice Guidelines and Technical Standards. The Center continually strives to be the Center of Excellence in Breast Imaging.
