For Use with Digital Mammography, Volpara is Designed to Assist Radiologists by Providing Objective Breast Density Values
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND, August 16, 2012 – Matakina International is pleased to announce that the Dutch Breast Screening Organizations and University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU) have decided to use Matakina’s Volpara software to assess breast density in the forthcoming ground-breaking DENSE trial.
The DENSE trial, run by Dr. Carla van Gils from UMCU, seeks to determine the cost-effectiveness of biennial screening with mammography and MRI compared to mammography alone in women aged 50-75 years old and who have extremely dense breasts (BI-RADS Breast Density category 4).
Mammography alone is known to have less sensitivity in women with extremely dense breasts than in women with fatty breasts, with the DMIST trial revealing a cancer detection rate of under 60%. Breast MRI is less affected by dense breast tissue and is known to be very sensitive but also generates more false positives.
Approximately one million women are screened every year in the Netherlands. For the trial, breast density will be assessed using the Volpara Imaging Software in a subset of the screening units. Some 5,000 women with BI-RADS Breast Density category 4 will be invited for breast MRI and their results will be compared to those who follow the usual mammography screening program. Dr. van Gils said “automated, objective density assessment was critical for this project, and Volpara, with its robust nature and clinical track-record is the perfect tool for the job.”
Volpara Imaging Software generates automatic, objective density measurements and is cleared by the FDA, Health Canada, the TGA and is CE marked. It is in use at sites across the globe helping radiologists assess breast density more objectively and helping them better consider who might benefit from additional screening. Dr. Ralph Highnam, CEO of Matakina said “the DENSE trial is a tremendous opportunity for us to help the Dutch Breast Screening Program potentially catch many more cancers each year and thus save many more lives, we look forward to working closely with them on this project.”
About Matakina
Founded to enable radiologists to give women the most accurate information possible regarding their breast health, Matakina International, Limited is the wholly owned sales and marketing arm of Matakina Technology Limited of New Zealand. Volpara’s founders and Board of Directors includes John Hood, PhD, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford, UK, Ralph Highnam, PhD, former CEO of Mirada Solutions, one of the University of Oxford’s most successful spin-outs of recent times and co-author of the seminal book Mammographic Image Analysis; and Professor Sir Michael Brady, a serial entrepreneur who recently retired from the University of Oxford where he was Professor of Information Technology for 25 years.
