Braman Family
Mobile Mammography Facility Aims to Increase Early Breast Cancer Detection in South Florida
The statistics are startling – while nationally 37 percent of newly diagnosed women with breast cancer are in stages three or four, in underserved South Florida communities the number jumps to an alarming 54 percent.
According to the American Cancer Society, early detection is key to preventing cancer spread and providing the best chances for survival. An essential part of early detection is mammography screening. With that in mind, and to encourage positive change in these statistics, the Braman family recently donated $1.1 million to the Green Family Foundation NeighborhoodHELP™ (NHELP™) program through FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. This gift brings to the community a mobile mammography facility, the first of its kind in South Florida. The “mammovan” is named after Linda Fenner, who died of breast cancer in 2005 at the age of 54.
“The Braman family proudly dedicates this mobile breast cancer center in Linda’s memory, in the hope and expectation that women in our underserved community will receive the finest medical care available,” said Irma Braman, one of Fenner’s sisters. “Linda was an inspiration for all, belonging to a cancer support group, and earning the respect and love of so many others. She never gave up hope, traveling the world, never complaining, believing almost to the end of her life, that there would be a tomorrow.”
The Linda Fenner 3-D Mobile Mammography Center has a mammogram station and two changing stations. The mammography machine uses digital tomosynthesis, which creates a three-dimensional image of the breast. Compared to the traditional two-dimensional approach, tomosynthesis is a newer option that more efficiently finds masses in the breast and gives less false positives.
The mammography center not only raises health awareness throughout South Florida, but also provides mammograms directly to many women in the community who might not otherwise have any access to health care.
Also concerned about lowering the local rates of advanced breast cancer, Carolyn D. Runowicz, M.D., executive associate dean for academic affairs in the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, is hopeful that the mammovan will help improve those statistics. “One of the factors is clearly access to health care,” said Runowicz, a gynecologic oncologist and herself a breast cancer survivor. “By increasing access to breast cancer screening to our NHELP™ families, we anticipate a reduction in the incidence of advanced breast cancer, and thus mortality.”
Help FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine become even better as FIU heads into its next 50 years forward. Learn more by visiting http://medicine.fiu.edu/. Or, give today at https://give.fiu.edu/give-now/medicine/.