Going 'round and 'round year-round

Jan. 31—BELLEFONTE — A local medical facility's second mobile mammography unit is ready to hit the road.

University of Kentucky King's Daughters CEO Sara Marks cut a long ribbon that nearly spanned the length of the 41-foot pink RV in the parking lot of the KDMC Pavilion on Thursday.

Kim Hunt, Lead Quality Control Technologist, said the unit will begin its journey on Monday.

The mobile mammography unit that was originally purchased in 1996 — aka "Mammo 1" — is still in service thanks to grant money. It is stationed in Prestonsburg currently.

Over the years, wear and tear caused mechanical problems that didn't seem salvagable until KDMC secured grant dollars to allow the purchase of equipment to keep Mammo 1 in service. At the KDMC outreach in Prestonsburg, it serves more than 20 patients a day, Marks said.

The new unit is a $1.1 million investment, according to Marks. It has five HVAC units, a built-in generator, a wheelchair lift and dedicated WiFi, which gives the technologists the ability to transmit images real-time to Ashland, where they can be read immediately.

"It's amazing how it can come together," Marks said. "Having two units for screening in eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio is such a blessing."

Robin Senters, Lead Supervising Technologist, and Hunt have both worked for King's Daughters for 35 years.

Senters said the "star of the show" is the Hologic 3Dimensions Mammography system, which is "the newest on the market," Hunt said.

The machine essentially acts as a CAT scan for the breasts.

"Doctors can scroll through in 1-millimeter increments to look for pathology that you can't see because you might have tissue over top of it, so if you have something solid like a cyst, you can scroll down through it to see if there's anything underneath it, hiding there," Hunt said.

She said it puts out "very little radiation," about the same amount as a cross-country flight in a jet.

The machine rotates and takes pictures for just a few seconds.

"It takes two top to bottom and two side to side so we can get a view of the whole breast," Hunt said.

Marks said one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Men can also get breast cancer.

Early detection is key, and with this new unit, it will cover a lot of ground — a 75-mile radius ranging from Floyd County, Kentucky, to Rowan County, and then north to Jackson, Ohio — five days a week.

"We can probably push through 20 screening mammograms a day, at least," Senters said. "There's nothing about this that isn't state of the art."

"We're on the move every day," Hunt said. "Some of those 75 miles are very remote. A lot of places have a standing appointment. Like the first Monday of every month is here, and the first Tuesday of every month is here, and so forth. ... You can call and say 'I live here and would like to go on mobile,' and they can choose where to go."

Amy Dean, of the UKKD public relations department, said KDMC attempts to inform the public on the whereabouts of the unit on its website and on social media.

Call the breast care center at (606) 325-2221 for more information or to schedule an appointment. You may also visit kingsdaughtershealth.com.

Marks said UK King's Daughters is "grateful for the generosity" of all of the contributors who allowed this to happen. Among large donors for the unit are the Rocky & Leah Adkins Cure for Cancer golf outing, King's Daughters Auxiliary, the late Gerald Mansbach, AEP Foundation and Dr. J. Wesley Johnson.

"We're working year-round to detect cancer," Marks said.