KGH Breast Unit buys a £40,000 new biopsy x-ray machine to improve patient experience

Kettering General Hospital has just taken delivery of a £40,000 new state-of-the-art biopsy x-ray machine.

The new device is used as a way of quickly checking if a breast biopsy sample has accurately targeted an anomaly being checked in the breast tissue.

Taking an accurate sample is important to be able to give the patient an accurate result.

Kettering General Hospital’s Breast Screening Programme Manager, Deborah Black, said: “Sometimes areas that require a biopsy can be very small, only a few millimetres, so it is very important to sample exactly the right place.

“What the new machine enables us to do is very quickly check if we have sampled the right area and decide whether to take further biopsies straightaway. This can reduce the need for patients to come back for another procedure.”

The new specimen cabinet is called a CompAI TrueView 100 Pro Care and has much improved image quality compared to our previous unit, which aids accurate sampling and diagnosis. KGH was the first hospital in the country to receive one after helping to develop it.

The machine also uses AI technology to highlight any calcium in a sample – an indicator that the sample has been taken from exactly the right place indicated on a mammogram.

The improvement comes on top of a raft of improvements to the Breast Unit announced last year.

In June 2023 the Trust opened a £250,000 newly refurbished mammography room to help support the 15,000 women it screens for cancer each year, and the symptomatic breast imaging it performs.

The £250,000 improvement was part of a £10m national funding boost to the NHS Breast screening programme to provide new mobile and static breast screening units as well as upgrades to existing units across the country.

It means KGH now has two state-of-the-art screening rooms in its breast screening unit inside the Treatment Centre. It also has two mobile screening units – one based at the hospital, next to the Treatment Centre, and one which tours the local area.

To find out more about the breast service members of the public can go to a special Open Day in the Treatment Centre from 2pm-6pm on Saturday, May 18.

The event is aimed at the general public to encourage health promotion and breast awareness. It is also directed at school students towards their PSHE studies; and health care professionals (qualified nurses, student nurses, and medical students) to expand their knowledge base and support patients they care for. The first hour (2-3pm) is focussed for people under the age of 35.