GE, RadNet to Analyze Breast Cancer Detection Processes

GE Healthcare and RadNet have partnered to identify the most efficient, cost-effective approaches for breast cancer detection.

Together, they will pilot test GE’s Best Pathways initiative, a breast cancer model designed to analyze clinical breast cancer detection processes, pinpoint inefficient diagnostic patterns, and discover the best ways to control costs while improving patient outcomes, both companies announced.

Best Pathways, targeted to women for whom there are few screening guidelines and frequent disparities in clinical practice, is intended to tackle the need for greater understanding around the breast cancer detection process from first screening mammograms to last biopsies.

Initiative plans include:

• determining the diagnostic cost per detected cancer,
• categorizing the types of breast cancers detected and their stage distribution,
• quantifying the number of imaging tests and biopsies needed to find each cancer, and
• determining the cost-effectiveness ratios per diagnostic case.

Patient population characteristics, such as age, risk of breast cancer development, and breast density, will be used to identify diagnostic patterns.

Previously published research in BMC Cancer revealed late diagnosis, decreased initial treatments and race are the main factors for mortality differences between wealthy and low-income breast cancer patients. The study called for more interventions targeted toward populations that lacked sufficient breast cancer services.