7th & 8th April 2008, Digital Mammography Self-Assessment Workshop on Mediconex in Cairo, Egypt

Knowledge sharing and education continuum have become a key commitment of nowadays’ medical centers and institutions to drive performance and progress. Through clinical education, GE Healthcare keeps on helping medical professionals in their training efforts.

To go one step ahead, GE Healthcare in association with LRCB, National Expert and Training Centre for Breast Cancer Screening in Netherlands, have the pleasure to invite you to a unique digital mammography workshop.
Held by two renowned experts from LRCB, Dr. R. Holland & H. Rijken, who already delivered successful digital mammography workshops all over the world; this workshop will be a unique opportunity to benefit from a rewarding experience.

Come sit together with leading mammography experts. Don’t miss this opportunity!
GE Healthcare and LRCB would be honored by your presence.

Please register in advance to be sure a seat will be booked for you.

The Dutch National Expert and Training Center for Breast Cancer Screening – Introduction to the LRCB from Nijmegen, Netherlands

Historically, Northern Europe pioneered breast cancer screening on the Old Continent. Successful pilot tests in Utrecht and Nijmegen, current hometown of LRCB, led to the implementation of a nationwide breast cancer screening programme in the Netherlands, in 1989.

Foundation of LRCB

Founded in 1988 by the Dutch Ministry of Health in support of its decision to launch a nationwide screening program, LRCB’ s mission is to provide ongoing training and education to radiographers, radiologists and other health care professionals involved in the national screening programme. By improving mammography-reading skills, LRCB helps breast care teams detect cancers earlier

Training without Frontiers

Also known as the Dutch National Expert and Training Center for Breast Cancer Screening, LRCB started to open the doors of its digital self-assessment workshops to overseas breast-care teams in Australia in 2005, at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiology in Sydney.

Welcomed with opened arms by the Australian breast care professionals in 2005, date of the first workshop release, the LRCB hands-on workshop was then repeated at ECR (Vienna, Austria) and started touring in the main worldwide congresses of radiology, (RSNA 2005, 2006, 2007) gathering more and more participants.

"With digital mammography and CAD use growing in number throughout the world, the workshop proposed by LRCB perfectly meets the increasing need of breast care professionals for training" Pr. R. Holland

LRCB will propose its digital mammography workshop in Cairo during the Mediconex 2008. Recommended by all attendees, this workshop, organized by LRCB in association with GE Healthcare, is a unique chance to review and manipulate real biopsy proven cases using high-end digital review stations.

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This Digital Mammography Workshop will be conducted by to renowned mammography experts from LRCB: Mrs. Henny Rijken and Pr. Roland Holland.

The LRCB tandem already held successful digital mammography workshops throughout the world: LEURA V conference 2004 in Sydney, ECR in Vienna, RSNA 05/ 06/ 07 in Chicago, B.I.C in Nashville along with ABDA-BSS workshop in Singapore.
Rated for the past two years as an excellent courses by attendees, LRCB now opens the doors of its workshop during Mediconex in Cairo in association with GE Healthcare.

Dr. Roland Holland and his associate Mrs. Henny Rijken, have set the benchmark for mammography training around the globe. They will hold the digital mammography workshop, share their knowledge and provide immediate personal feedbacks to the workshop attendees

LRCB Experts Backgrounds

Pr. Roland Holland MD, PhD.

Mrs. Henny Rijken

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Mr. Roland Holland MD, PhD will animate in tandem with Mrs. Henny Rijken, the next Digital Mammography Workshop held at the Mediconex 2008.

General Electric: What is this Digital Mammography Workshop?
Roland Holland: It is an opportunity to practice with your own hands and interpret real screen-detected cases on a digital review station either alone or in tandem.

GE: What is the profile of target attendees?
RH: Radiologists, radiology residents, radiographers, radiography technicians and surgeons. All professionals with experience in mammography, willing to acquaint, train themselves, and assess their skills in soft copy reading are welcome.

GE: How does it work?
RH: After a short introduction, participants will review a set of 30 cases during 40 minutes including a number of cancers and normals and decide whether a particular case is positive or negative, thus calling back or not the patient for further radiological assessment. After the case completion, participants will get personal feedback to understand why their answers might differ from the right answer.

GE: Why is this training valuable?
RH: All training is valuable, but in this case you are confronted with 30 real-life screening cases of asymptomatic women that you might have seen in your cabinet and that you might have had difficulties in interpreting.
This is a pragmatic experience that gives you a chance to learn from virtual mistakes that could arise in real diagnosis situations and to get answers with 100% certainty, as 4 to 6 out of the 30 cases are biopsy proven cancer cases. All together, 4 different modules of 30 cases can be studied. Finally, the workshop gives participants the opportunity for hands-on experience with reading and manipulating digital mammography cases on high-end digital workstations.

GE: What is your role in this workshop?
RH: First, I will conduct the workshop in tandem with my friend and colleague Mrs. Rijken. Our role is to provide attendees with personal feedback on cases they want to understand better. In addition, clinical histories, additional views as well as ultrasound and pathology results are available for radiologists who want to get a deeper understanding of the cases.

"This workshop places you in a real-life situation, except that your recall decision will only impact you and will not have repercussions on your patient. It is a chance to commit mistakes and learn from them."

GE: What is the goal of this workshop?
RH: Our ultimate goal is to enable radiologists, radiographers, surgeons and other health professionals to detect cancers at their earliest stages so that they can be treated before they progress to metastatic disease. To achieve this, our mission is to set new recall thresholds based on prevention. Instead of recalling women with obvious mammographic abnormalities only, radiologists and radiographers should focus more on subtle ones.

"Details make the difference. That is why we should not overlook them. It is better to recall a patient earlier than realize at the next mammogram she has developed an interval cancer."

GE: What are the benefits for the attendees?
RH: For screen-film radiologists and radiographers, it is an opportunity to familiarize themselves with digital technology. For digital mammography users in general, it is an opportunity to increase their softcopy reading skills and find the right balance between recall and detection rate.

GE: Where does the idea of workshops come from?
RH: As you may know, our organization, LRCB, was created in 1988 by the Dutch Ministry of Health to ensure quality of the national breast-screening program. Our mission was, and still is, to provide on-going training and education to medical teams (radiologists, radiographers, and other health-care professionals) taking part in the Dutch screening program. Because we have been operating for nearly 20 years, we have collected large series of teaching material and acquired experience in training breast care professionals. The initiative to create these workshops came from the desire to share our expertise with colleagues across the borders. The more people who are trained, the earlier cancers can be detected. This is the motto of our workshops.

"The more people who receive training, the earlier cancers can be detected. This is the motto of our workshops; our commitment to education."