Anne Richards, Carestream

How long should mammograms be kept?

Reading Time: 2 minutes read

Today we’re dealing with a confusing topic with significant clinical, technical and legal ramifications. Specific retention requirements—like screening conventions themselves—vary widely by country as well as locally at the province/state level.

In general, retention of prior film and digital images falls into two very different camps: one puts responsibility on the healthcare facility to retain the images and make them available for a set number of years. Countries such as the U.S., Canada and many European countries mandate this. The other places the onus on the woman being screened to store and retrieve prior images, as in Mexico, South America and India.

For this discussion, we’ll focus on U.S. requirements since they are among the more confusing. For starters, U.S. facilities providing mammography must follow the Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA). This law mandates that mammograms be retained for a period of not less than five years and, in some cases, at least 10 years if no additional mammograms of the patient are performed at the facility. But remember, individual state laws may require even longer retention and are equally important to follow.

Many facilities end up retaining prior films for the life of the patient (or longer). This might be due to litigation concerns that could result from missed cancers, lack of understanding of state requirements or the fear of quality inspections. Many are instructed (or choose) to retain film indefinitely, rather than risk making a mistake that could put themselves or their organization at risk. This can result in a huge amount of wasted storage and resource usage that could be avoided—especially since many older mammographic images have been rendered virtually “undiagnostic” by technology advances over the last 10 years.

When organizations transition to digital imaging, this issue is further compounded by questions regarding the digitization of prior images. It’s important to understand that digitized images of prior film mammograms can be extremely useful and can be used for comparison purposes, but cannot be used to fulfill retention requirements as the FDA mandates that the original film mammogram must remain archived and available.

With all of this in mind, my guidance is to always understand your local and state laws regarding retention of prior mammography images. It’s also essential to have a sound strategy for digitizing analog images that aligns with your workflow, patient needs and country and local mammography quality standards laws. This knowledge, and planning, will serve you and your patients well—and just might help you avoid storing “ancient” films longer than you need.

How does your organization/facility deal with this issue?

– Anne Richards, Clinical Development Manager, Women’s Health

COMMENTS

  • reply

    in my point of view, this issue started to be critical when PACS vendors started offering spining disks as long term archives. Otherwise, archiving on media was not that expensive or critical on the long terms. Yes we still need to consider retention policies as author pointed out .. Otherwise we end up with dumpsters of not need information.

  • reply

    carestreamhealth

    Thanks for the comment… you make a very good point about electronic data retention. This is one aspect that a talented PACS Administrator working with the administration can sort out—what is necessary to retain and for how long. Thanks, again!

    – Anne Richards, Carestream

  • reply

    Linda Mulvihill

    This does not address a facility’s obligation for “permanent transfer” at a a patient’s request. What would constitute valid documentation?

    • reply

      carestreamhealth

      Linda,

      Good question. The patient has to receive films if analog and can be given a DVD, CD or printed images of digital mammography images. The patient cannot be charged for one copy of their data but can be charged if they request more than one copy.

      The site must keep data on the patient based on local or federal guidelines. Hope this helps!

      -Anne Richards, Carestream

  • reply

    Linda S

    Hello, I have a question regarding Mammography film retention. If prior mammo images are transferred to new facility for continuing care, what is requirement for facility that images are transferred to. If Mammo images are thrown away, is there any recourse to these actions. I’m being told that only burden is on originating facility, not to new facility. Thanks for your help with this. LB

    • reply

      Hello Linda, different countries and even regions within countries have their own regulations. The originating sites as well as the site doing patient care, treatment etc. must check with their governing body about mammo retention. I hope this was helpful; thank you for reading the blog.

  • reply

    Donna Johnson

    I was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, September 2016. I realize nothing can change the results but personally I want to read the results for myself of more current film results.

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