AMIT Student Poster Presentation Accepted for International Conference

For Jessica Horn, breast cancer hits close to home. Her grandmother has had the disease multiple times,  and as a result, her mother has to have additional screenings done as a precaution. Her interest in the topic is why her senior capstone project in the Advanced Magnetic Imaging Technology (AMIT) program in the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Allied Health Sciences (CAHS) is Breast Cancer Screening: Mammography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Her poster will be presented at the Society for MR Radiographers and Technologists (SMRT) 27th Annual Meeting June 15-18 in Paris.

"I was shocked,” says Horn when she learned that her poster was selected for the prestigious meeting. "I thought I did a good job, I didn’t know I did that well.”

Her poster examines multiple peer-reviewed articles to compare the results of mammography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). After the review of all sources was complete, it found that MRI was more sensitive and recommended for women with dense breast tissue or at a higher risk of developing breast cancer. 

Barry Southers, associate professor in the Department of Clinical and Health Information Sciences in CAHS and MRI program director of the UC AMIT program, thinks there are a couple of reasons why Horn’s poster was selected to be presented. 

"It’s a combination of an innovative topic, and research that’s not been done over and over and over again,” says Southers. "Using MRI as a breast cancer screening tool is a relatively innovative topic so it’s probably not something that a whole lot of people have submitted for poster presentations before. Plus, it’s just well-written. She did a good job writing it, putting in pertinent information.”

Southers says the SMRT meeting in Paris will probably attract up to 40,000 attendees, with researchers from all around the world.