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New Zealand

An Interview with a Comfort Comp Developer

Using Technology to Alleviate the Pain of Mammography Screenings

The content on this page is intended to healthcare professionals and equivalents.

  • * This article is based on an October 2022 interview with Mr. Takahisa Arai, who worked on development of Comfort Comp from 2016 to 2017

Why are Screening Rates So Low?: Zeroing in on the Pain Element

What explains the low screening rates? What could we, as a company that manufactures mammography solutions, do to boost them?

According to a 2017 survey of around 1,500 women, the third-most common reason that respondents decided not to go in for a mammogram was that the procedures had been “painful” or seemed that they “would be painful.” With those results indicating that pain could be a significant factor behind Japan’s low screening rates for breast cancer, I started to wonder if we could find a way to alleviate that pain.

Since the Product Launch

When the product finally hit the market, we got so much positive feedback from patients: people said that it cut the pain level of a mammogram “in half” and was “completely different” from what the pain they’d experienced in the past. Pain varies from person to person, of course, so some people didn’t notice much of a difference. Some offered their gratitude, thanking Fujifilm for “understanding that mammograms hurt and having the compassion to try to do something about it,” while others commented that the product could get people who “avoid screenings because of the pain” to start coming in for tests. 

Technologists using Comfort Comp were enthusiastic about the product as well. They said: “Comfort Comp promoted their communication with people before actual screenings and made it easier to encourage them to follow through with screenings.” It was so gratifying to know that Comfort Comp was making a real difference in clinical practice.

In Closing

Comfort Comp can help mitigate the pain, anxiety, and discomfort that people associate with breast-cancer screenings—all with hardly any impact on the mammography imaging that doctors depend on or the workflow that technologists follow in completing the necessary procedures. Working together with medical professionals who devote themselves to women’s health, we’re excited to do whatever we can do to give women around the world more reasons to smile.

References

Japan Society of Breast Health, “Survey on breast cancer screening 2013: Survey report.”

OECD (2017), Health at a Glance 2017: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Source: Center for Cancer Control and Information Services , National Cancer Center, Japan