Free breast cancer screenings in Penn Medicine’s new mammogram van will begin Sunday

Penn Medicine’s latest set of wheels, a 34-foot van adorned with pink flowers and a big butterfly, drives like a typical vehicle.

However, step inside it and you’ll find a clinic on wheels.

The colorful, air-conditioned van houses advanced 3D mammography equipment. It will start offering free mammograms Sunday at a Penn-hosted community health fair in West Philadelphia. Mammograms are X-ray images of the breast that allow doctors to screen for cancer at an early stage, when it can be most treatable.

The concept of mobile mammography screening isn’t new. Penn, Temple’s Fox Chase Cancer Center, and Jefferson Health have all used similar mobile screening efforts to bring mammograms into the community.

But often, these efforts are sporadic, according to the PA Breast Cancer Coalition, a statewide breast cancer advocacy group.

In the past, Penn’s events would only last for two weeks out of the year. That’s because the health system was borrowing the screening equipment through a partnership with Siemens Healthineers, a medical technology company. Penn would forklift it into a parking lot. After two weeks, they would have to tear down the site and return the equipment.

“Something that needs to be jerry-rigged into a space and has to be there for a week or two wasn’t ideal. We needed a lot more flexibility,” said Brian Englander, chair of Pennsylvania Hospital’s department of radiology.

Now, Penn has its first mobile mammogram van. Owning the vehicle means they can deploy it whenever and wherever it’s needed on a more regular schedule.

Penn’s goal is to have the van fully staffed and running at least five days a week from at least 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

They want the van to establish a routine in the communities they visit, rather than show up randomly. For example, they might park in one neighborhood every January, so that those residents get their mammograms on a yearly basis.

The goal is to “make it essentially identical to what you would have if you were to come to the hospital, and not show up willy-nilly,” Englander said.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that women between 40 and 74 years of age get a mammogram every two years. The American Cancer Society suggests annual mammograms.

Screening increases the odds that a cancer is caught before it has the chance to progress.

“The earlier you can find a breast cancer, the easier it is to treat and the better the outcomes,” said Pat Halpin-Murphy, president and founder of the PA Breast Cancer Coalition.

In partnership with Siemens, Penn Medicine has provided 1,000 free mammograms since 2021. Nine of the people screened were diagnosed with breast cancer.

This is almost double the national average of 5.1 cancers detected per thousand screening mammograms, which indicates that Penn’s community screening events are reaching people who had not been screened before, said Linda White Nunes, a radiologist and vice chair for community health in Penn’s department of radiology.

The West Philly community health fair, held Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 6150 Cedar Ave., will bring cancer screenings to a neighborhood where a majority of residents are Black. The event is meant to address cancer disparities in underserved communities by offering free screenings for cancers of the breast, prostate, colon, and throat.

Screening is especially important for Black women, Nunes said, who face a 40% higher breast cancer mortality rate compared to white women. Part of that is because Black women are more likely to develop a more aggressive type of breast cancer called triple-negative breast cancer, which is “harder to treat the longer that it’s been in place,” she said.

» READ MORE: Breast cancer strikes young Black women at alarming rate | Expert Opinion

Nunes serves as lead organizer of Penn’s annual free community health fair. She’s seen firsthand how the convenience of getting a free mammogram on the spot can persuade people who would not otherwise seek out the service.

One year, when Penn’s mobile mammogram unit was parked outside the Church of Christian Compassion on Cedar Avenue, a member of that church took it as her sign to get a mammogram.

“‘God must be telling me that I should go get this mammogram,’” Nunes recalled the woman, who was a breast cancer survivor, saying.

Penn ended up finding a recurrence of her breast cancer. Because it was found early enough, doctors were able to treat it fully.

Today, that woman is cancer-free.