Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: How “One-Stop” Breast Cancer Diagnostic Centers Change the Math on Cancer

Cancer is a uniquely pernicious killer. It often strikes without warning and impacts almost all of us – attacking 100 million people globally each year and doubling its destruction over the last generation. Today cancer has overtaken heart disease as the leading killer in the developed world[1], leaving patients and their families in its wake. I’m no exception. My mother recently had a suspicious mammogram that led to additional scans and a biopsy over the course of two months. While she received good news in the end, the stress of the process was clear on her and on our family.

Yet there is hope, and there is progress. Promising new immunotherapies and other innovative oncology treatment plans will empower clinicians for generations to come. We’ve partnered with Vanderbilt to build algorithms that predict immunotherapies’ efficacy and side effects, and also just announced several collaborations to develop targeted Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging tracers that will better monitor individual patient response to immunotherapies. We expect that these tracers will eventually help boost patient response rates and treatment effectiveness, which currently sit at a discouraging 20-40 percent.[2]

Still, the key challenge for doctors and patients is time: spotting, localizing and treating cancer as early as possible. Time matters, as almost half of cancer patients are diagnosed too late. Each day earlier we can catch cancer, and each day we can shorten a cancer treatment plan, the patient benefits – and life expectancy increases. In fact, finding breast cancer earlier reduces a woman’s risk of death by 30 or more percent.[3]

Typically, women can wait up to three weeks or more for a follow-up exam to evaluate the results of a suspicious mammogram.[4] That’s why innovations like the “One-Stop Clinic” for breast care are so vital. Powered by our Senographe Pristina™ mammography system and SenoBright™ Contrast Enhanced Spectral Mammography (CESM) HD technology, along with ultrasound and biopsy solutions, One-Stop Clinics offer a coordinated patient journey from the initial appointment through diagnosis and treatment plan. All under one roof. Over the course of ideally one day. And with one multi-disciplinary team. One stop, that’s all.

Years ago, breast oncologist Dr. Suzette Delaloge at the Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus outside Paris first developed the One-Stop Clinic breast health program by combining multi-disciplinary, multi-modality imaging to diagnose cancers sooner. After evaluating 20,000 patients, this French hospital found that 75 percent of patients arriving at the clinic with suspicious breast findings received an exact diagnosis and treatment plan the same day – versus waiting on average two months in the traditional model. In more good news, the One-Stop Clinic delivered 80 percent patient satisfaction and an up to 50 percent reduction in total costs.[5]

Now this One-Stop Clinic concept has crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Premier Inc. in North Carolina just announced it’s bringing this same-day multi-modality and multidisciplinary breast cancer diagnosis and treatment model to the United States. My colleague and GE Healthcare’s oncology leader, Ben Newton, summarizes the impact of these One-Stop Clinics well, saying: “It’s incredibly nerve-wracking for patients to hear they have a suspicious finding on their mammogram, and then have to wait weeks or even months for a follow-up exam. The One-Stop Clinic model offers almost immediate answers to patients and their loved ones.”

This is GE Healthcare’s goal. Finding and treating cancer sooner. We’re focused on serving the entire oncology care continuum within an ecosystem of precision health: enabling earlier diagnosis, empowering more effective therapy and encouraging smoother multi-stage treatment plans. From the One-Stop Clinic concept and developing new PET tracers for immunotherapy, to our in vivo - in vitro partnership with Roche, we’re putting our million-plus medical imaging devices worldwide to work at over 1,500 cancer centers to help improve patient outcomes.

Cancer is still too deadly today. But medicine, and specifically oncology care, is changing fast, and we’re changing with it. Can’t stop, won’t stop, one-stop. For my own mother and for the millions of other patients out there facing an uncertain diagnosis. I’m optimistic we can take the fight to cancer – do you agree?

[1] IHME’s Global Burden of Disease; Lancet; Research from the American Cancer Society, July 3, 2019, JAMA Oncology.

[2] https://www.genewsroom.com/press-releases/ge-healthcare-expands-oncology-pet-tracer-portfolio-%E2%80%93-aims-improve-patient-response.

[3] Mammographic screening and mortality from breast cancer. Ingvar Andersson et al, October 15, 1988, BMJ. Impact of Screening on Breast Cancer Mortality:

The UK Program 20 Years On, Nathalie J. Massat et al, December 15, 2015, American Association for Cancer Research Journal.

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4114209/

[5] Long-term multimodal assessment of One Stop Breast Unit. Gustave Roussy, Collection and analysis of data June, 2013.