Please Help the Linda Buchan Centre Upgrade This Important Breast Cancer Screening Tool
Published Tuesday, September 30, 2025
The Reading Station behind Dr. Brian Birchenough, breast radiologist and Co-lead at the Linda Buchan Centre, struggles to keep up with the latest imaging techniques. With your support, it can be upgraded for faster, clearer results.
Chances are, you've experienced the frustration too: an old, painfully slow computer trying to keep up with new and better software. Your computer freezes and sometimes even crashes trying to do what you want it to do.
A similar thing is happening at the Linda Buchan Centre for Breast Screening and Assessment with its computer systems. But with your support, we can give the Linda Buchan Centre a new Reading Station with more computing power and a new, high-res monitor for image assessment. You will help provide breast screening patients with faster results and ultimately better patient care.
In many ways, it's a reflection of how breast imaging and assessment tools are becoming much more powerful. New technology is helping us find smaller and smaller tumours. Today's software and tools can find tumours as small as 5mm and sometimes 2mm – that's about the thickness of a loonie! Earlier detection means less invasive treatment and better results for patients.
However, processing those image files requires a lot of computing power.
“We have new, advanced imaging techniques that generate more and larger image files,” said Dr. Brian Birchenough, a breast radiologist at the Linda Buchan Centre. “Our computers can't keep up.”
Slow computers in turn slow down test results.
“As you can imagine, a slight delay in processing each image leads to longer delays overall,” he said. “The best tools and software are useless if we do not have enough computing power to run them. We need an upgraded Reading Station and new high-res monitor to take full advantage of these imaging tools.”
That's where you can help. Your donation to the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation today will allow us to purchase a new Reading Station and brand new high-res monitor for the Linda Buchan Centre. This new system will help radiologists like Dr. Birchenough process test results faster and be able to zoom in further to see smaller tumours.
You'll also be helping increase computing power for future technological advancements that will improve breast screening capabilities even further.
“Your support right now will help us continue to find breast cancer tumours earlier – and faster,” Dr. Birchenough said.
Donate today to help women get their breast screening results faster! Visit online at: healthsciencesfoundation.ca/breastcancer.
Article By: Graham Strong