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Donna Krasner's mother, aunts and cousin all have breast cancer, so her physician recommended she receive a digital mammography exam every year. Just as digital cameras provide consumers many advantages over film cameras, digital mammography provides physicians the advantage of being able to manipulate and share breast images to make better diagnoses.

One in eight women is at risk for breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Advances in digital mammography may help physicians make better diagnoses by enabling them to manipulate and share breast images. A recent study sponsored by the National Cancer Institute suggests digital mammography detects up to 28% more cancers than traditional mammography for women under the age of 50 or with dense breasts.

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More than two years after being diagnosed with breast cancer, Mary Lou Graf received troubling news following a mammogram and, later, an ultrasound. Doctors suspected a recurrence of cancer, but tests were inconclusive. They ordered an MRI.

More and more, breast MRI is becoming a diagnostic tool for physicians and also as an adjunct to mammography.

While mammography remains the gold standard, there are certain tumors and diseases that can't be seen with mammography, but can be seen with MRI. The problem: Mary Lou, like a growing number of Americans, is too large for most MRI machines. So, she traveled to Southwest Diagnostic Imaging Center in Dallas to take advantage of an MRI that combines a large bore, or opening, that's a full 70 centimeters wide with high field imaging.

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At 49, Eva Smith is vigilant about getting her yearly mammogram. But when a recent exam detected a mass in her left breast she was afraid - and not just about the prospect of breast cancer. She feared getting an invasive biopsy.

According to the American Cancer Society, that eight out of 10 breast biopsies come back normal. But a revolutionary new technology - called elasticity imaging - is expected to help physicians better classify breast lesions that may reduce the need for biopsies. Elasticity imaging is an ultrasound technique recently cleared by the FDA that allows doctors to measure the stiffness of tissue, relative to surrounding areas.

In a recent elasticity imaging study, doctors studied 166 suspected breast tumors in 99 women scheduled for biopsies. The lesions were measured using both the standard ultrasound technique and elasticity ultrasound. The results showed that elasticity imaging correctly identified all 17 malignant lesions and 105 of 106 benign lesions. In Eva's case, an elasticity ultrasound determined the mass in her breast was benign and did not require a biopsy.

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