Sanford World Clinic Selects MammaCare® to Improve Early Breast Cancer Detection

GAINESVILLE, Fla., Oct. 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ghanaian women present with late stage III/IV breast cancer due to delayed detection and diagnosis, resulting in a 39% five-year survival rate.¹ As a first step in reducing fatal delays in detection and treatment, Sanford World Clinic adopted MammaCare's clinical breast exam simulator to train frontline clinical examiners to perform evidence-based clinical breast exams. 

The MammaCare Clinical Breast Exam Simulator employs an advanced, web-based clinical training platform that teaches, measures, and verifies the user's breast exam skills. Within 2 to 3 hours of instruction and palpation practice, the system quantifies the user's performance, corrects examination deficiencies, and reports the resulting skill level and competencies to supervisors.

To complete the training protocol, users are required to detect all suspicious masses (0.3cm - 1.0cm) without increasing false positives.  While most breast lumps are not cancer, well trained fingers can detect suspicious lesions that require further evaluation.² 

The MammaCare training technology was developed and validated with the support of the National Science Foundation, and was adopted to train Veterans Administration clinical staff serving in the Woman Veterans Health Program. The technology is now training clinicians in CDC-sponsored National Breast and Cervical Early Detection and Prevention Programs (NBCCEDP), as well as numerous U.S. colleges of nursing and medicine. Among the published studies of the MammaCare's method of clinical breast exam, a landmark report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) observed that it contributed the first, effective standards for performing skilled breast exams.³

Brian DeHaai, Senior Director of Operations at Sanford World Health Clinic, said, "The early results of the MammaCare breast exam program are exciting and feedback from our clinical team is highly positive. We believe this technology can be deployed widely to remote regions where few early detection options exist."

Katie Brunner, MPH, MammaCare's Director of Training worked with Sanford to initialize the Ghanaian program. Katie reported that: "The performance results from the Sanford World Clinic practitioners in Ghana match those from advanced practice nurses and physicians within the U.S.- trained cohorts. We look forward to continued collaboration with Sanford World Clinic to provide breast exam skills to detect the earliest signs of breast cancer."

Links:

• Survival Outcomes: Breast Cancer in Ghana
• Breast Cancer in Ghana: Demonstrating the Need for Population-Based Cancer Registries in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
• A lump is the most common sign of initial and interval breast cancer.

For inquiries, please contact:

Katie Brunner, MPH, 1.352.375.0607, [email protected]
Mark Kane Goldstein, Ph.D., [email protected]
The MammaCare Foundation (U.S.)
1.352.375.0607

SOURCE The MammaCare Foundation