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Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology Opens New Dix Hills/Deer Park Location

Radiology Practice opens 17^th location on Long Island

Deer Park, New York – On April 28, 2015, Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology, the largest private radiology practice on Long Island, announced the opening of its newest location in Deer Park, NewYork, bordering on Dix Hills.  The new office is located at 2087 Deer Park Avenue, making this their eleventh office in Suffolk County. 

The office offers MRI, CT, X-ray, and Ultrasound, and is conveniently located two miles south of the Long Island Expressway and three miles north of the Southern State Parkway.  The Dix Hills/Deer Park location expands Zwanger-Pesiri’s reach in providing easy access to the most advanced radiological services in the industry and will provide the first 3.0 Tesla Wide-bore magnet in the area.  The 3.0 Tesla MRI provides an unprecedented level of detail and clarity, and is designed to ease claustrophobia and maximize patient comfort.

Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology is a patient-centric practice and has become well-known for their fast turnaround time of results.  They employ over 50 subspecialty-trained radiologists who only read studies within their own field of expertise.  According to Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Steven L. Mendelsohn, this results in 90% of the studies being read within one hour.  These results, along with results from previous exams, are posted on the Patient Portal for the patient to access at his or her convenience. 

“We are excited to add this new facility and staff to the Zwanger-Pesiri organization. Our goal is to provide easily accessible, superior, outpatient imaging to all of Long Island, and this office takes us one step closer. We are eager to bring our professional expertise and paramount patient care that we are known for to the community,” said Dr. Mendelsohn.

About Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology

Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology, the largest and most respected practice on Long Island, has been serving the community for over 60 years. To date, there are 17 locations in Nassau and Suffolk counties, each providing a range of radiological specialties including musculoskeletal, neurological, oncological, vascular and more. 

Having over 50 certified radiologists that have multiple subspecialties, and offering seven 1.5T MRI units, seventeen 3T MRI units, twenty-three 3D Mammography units, three PET/CT scanners, and the first clinical outpatient MRI/PET system in the country, Zwanger-Pesiri continues to provide the highest quality of care and excellence to all of its patients.

Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology strives to provide the most advanced technology available today with a strong focus on delivering a quality of care unmatched in the industry. Visit the Zwanger-Pesiri website for further information at www.zprad.com.

3D Automated Breast Ultrasound System (ABUS)

Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology recently introduced the 3D Automated Breast Ultrasound System (3D ABUS) at its offices in Plainview and Stony Brook.   3D ABUS will complement other breast cancer screening tests - including Digital Mammography, 3D Mammography (Tomosynthesis), and Breast MRI – as part of Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology’s ongoing commitment to detecting breast cancer at the 
earliest possible stage.

3D ABUS is a new approach to performing an ultrasound (or “sonogram”) of the breasts.  During a painless examination that takes approximately 15 minutes, the 3D ABUS device acquires ultrasound images of the breasts, covering each breast in its entirety.  Instead of a small handheld probe, 3D ABUS uses a large curved panel that can typically cover all of the breast tissue in three quick sweeps.

The images are then reviewed by a radiologist on a 3-dimensional work station.  The radiologist is able to look through hundreds of images from multiple angles and see through layers of breast tissue to find cancers, which might otherwise have gone undetected.  The radiologist can compare the 3D ABUS findings to the patient’s mammogram, as well as to prior ultrasound examinations.

Why is 3D ABUS important?  Mammography is a very powerful tool for detecting breast cancer, but it is not perfect.  Approximately 40% of women have dense breasts, and mammography can miss up to 30% of cancers in dense breast tissue.  3D ABUS is not a substitute for mammography, which is still the single best screening test for breast cancer.   However, adding 3D ABUS as a screening test for patients with dense breast tissue can improve cancer detection.

Because 3D ABUS uses sound waves, there is no radiation exposure. Any patient with dense breast tissue, including those with prior breast cancer, breast surgery or implants, can benefit from 3D ABUS. 

Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology is the leading breast imaging facility on Long Island offering 17 locations throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties. 

Cryoablation: The Alternative to Surgery for Fibroadenomas

It can all come down to a moment in the shower -- you’re washing up and then, all of a sudden, you feel a lump. Yes, for some, the most regular action on the most average of days has been exactly the moment that sends hearts falling from the normal course of everyday life into an “Oh my, now what will I do?” realization. So it can be with fibroadenomas, the solid, noncancerous breast tumors that occur most often in adolescent girls and women, ages 12 to 35.

Usually painless, fibroadenomas can vary in size and might feel like a marble in your breast, moving under the skin when touched. Among the most common breast lumps in young women, fibroadenomas are a bit of a puzzle in that they can get bigger or even shrink on their own (due to hormonal changes). The first step is discovery, which can take place during a woman’s normal showering routine or through a brief self-examination. A more proactive, clinical way of diagnosing a fibroadenoma is via an imaging test like a mammogram, ultrasound, or MRI. Your doctor will, most likely, recommend one of these imaging tests to confirm that the lump is, indeed, a fibroadenoma.

So how do you deal with a fibroadenoma once discovered? If the fibroadenoma is small and painless, and remains the same size, you would not need any treatment. Often, fibroadenomas can be left alone and no treatment is necessary.  They are, usually, just monitored with follow-up ultrasounds. If however, the fibroadenoma is large, painful, or growing, and your doctor advises treatment, options can include monitoring to detect changes in their size or feel, a biopsy, surgical removal, or cryoablation, an FDA-approved treatment as an alternative to surgery. Cryoablation is a long-established, effective procedure for destroying these types of breast tumors that usually takes between 5 and 15 minutes. After a local anesthetic is applied, a thin hollow needle (called a “cryoprobe”) is used to circulate cooled, thermally conductive fluids which destroy the offensive surrounding tissue (the frozen tissue is absorbed within months). Since no tissue is removed, the shape of your breast will not be affected.

Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology is the only outpatient facility on Long Island performing cryoablation, leading the way in breast imaging. For more information, click Cryoablation or call (631)225-7200 ext. 4642 to speak to our radiologist, Dr. Guy Bassis. For a ZPR office nearest you, click locations & directions.

Hospital-Owned Physician Groups Have 20% Higher Medical Costs

As hospital systems nationwide acquire more physician practices, everybody may be getting hurt.  A new study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association shows that hospital ownership of physician groups in California led to up to 20% overall higher costs for patient care. Employers and workers have to pay for these increased costs in the form of higher premiums, and consumers face higher prices with insurance deductibles rising.

For the study, data from 2009 to 2012 was analyzed, including nearly 160 medical groups and 4.5 million patients in California. Categories included groups owned by physicians, those owned by large hospital systems across several of the state’s geographic markets, and those owned by local hospitals or hospital systems.

According to the study, total spending was 10.3% higher per patient for hospital-owned physician offices compared with doctor-owned organizations.  When large health systems running multiple hospitals owned medical groups, costs were even higher. Compared with independent physician groups, per patient spending was 19.8% higher.

These physician groups are also under pressure to refer patients to more expensive imaging and other outpatient treatments that can be cheaper at free-standing clinics. It all brings into focus that the consolidation of physicians and hospitals into large mega-systems will not reduce costs, and will increase the cost of healthcare.

Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology (ZPR) is a privately owned radiology practice dedicated to providing state-of-the-art radiological services to our patients with a level of care unmatched in the industry. We offer 17 offices throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties. Click here to see all the services ZPR offers.

Zwanger-Pesiri hosts official grand opening at Lynbrook location

As seen in LI Herald:

"Town and local officials, as well as staff and other well-wishers, were on hand last Saturday as Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology officially opened its newest location at 443 Sunrise Highway. It is the Long Island-based radiology center's seventeeth location. Zwanger-Pesiri specializes in radiological procedures such as MRI/PET, breast MRI, cardiac and vascular CTA, 3D mamography, PET/CT, digital X-ray, nuclear medicine and ultrasound. The new facility in Lynbrook is housed in a large, multi-floor glass building, surrounded by landscaping. It will feature some of most advanced radiological equipment and procedures available."

The First & Only Private Radiology Facility in the Nation to Offer MRI/PET

On November 11, 2014, at its newest facility in Lynbrook, NY, Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology has once again led the way in medical imaging by being the first private radiology facility in the United States to acquire an MRI/PET (Magnetic Resonance Imaging/Positron Emission Tomography) scanner. The Biograph mMR, by Siemens, is the only FDA-approved device that has the ability to acquire both an MRI and a PET scan simultaneously -- leading to better detection, characterization and treatment of oncologic, neurologic and cardiac diseases.

For many years before the Biograph mMR was available, the modality of choice had been PET/CT, a hybrid modality that performs both a PET (Positron Emission Tomography) and a CT (Computed Tomography) scan. However, because of the dangers of radiation exposure with CT and its low soft tissue resolution, radiologists have chosen to use software techniques that combine a patient’s MRI scan with the patient’s PET scan -- creating fused MRI/PET studies. But due to motion and alignment issues with fusing two exams from two different scanners, diagnosing certain diseases was problematic -- but not anymore.

The simultaneous imaging of MRI and PET with the Biograph mMR scanner will:

- Eliminate CT radiation exposure that is received from PET/CT scans, which is equivalent to approximately 100 chest X-rays.

- Provide superior soft tissue information than PET/CT, thus increasing the sensitivity and specificity of the exam.

- Increase diagnostic confidence by eliminating motion from two separate scans.

- Reduce the number of office visits and acquisition time by combining two important imaging techniques in one system.

“These points are of the utmost importance to us here at Zwanger-Pesiri,” says Chief Executive Officer, Steven L. Mendelsohn, MD. “Not only are we committed to giving our patients access to the most advanced imaging techniques on the market, but we are dedicated to reducing radiation exposure whenever possible. The fact that MRI/PET delivers better diagnostic information than PET/CT and reduces radiation exposure equivalent to 100 chest X-rays, is what makes this modality an integral part of who we are and what we stand for.”

“We know that by having an MRI/PET unit at Zwanger-Pesiri, patients and physicians around the country, and even the world, will now have access to this valuable imaging modality in a more private, comfortable and family-like environment. And being that Lynbrook is only 15 minutes away from John F. Kennedy International Airport, this office will be accessible to many,” says Robert Day, Chief Operating Officer of Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology.