I remember thinking to myself, “God I hope I never need this
technology.” [slightly tense music]
A Hubble science writer’s personal experience
with a life-saving Hubble technology spinoff
In 1997 the astronauts will be going back to the Hubble
Space Telescope. One of their jobs will be to insert a new
generation instrument called the Space Telescope Imaging
Spectograph. This instrument contains highly advanced new
digital imaging technology and this same technology developed
especially for Hubble is as we speak being used in clinics and
hospitals across this country in a new breast biopsy system in a
high-tech war on breast cancer. My name is Ann Jenkins, I’m a
science writer on Hubble Space Telescope. This was one of the
first stories I worked on as a full-time science writer. The
way it came about was I was asked to document Hubble
spinoffs, technology that was originally developed for Hubble
that was being used on Earth. The new technology involved
seeing into the breast tissue from two different angles and
pinpointing the suspicious tissue and then bringing a small
needle into the tissue to take out a portion of the suspicious
tissue to be biopsied. So this saved the patient an open
surgical incision, which was the way biopsies had been done
previously. When I was first researching and writing about
the technology, I thought, “Well this is amazing. You know, the
patient is going to have so much less pain and so much less
recovery time.” And then we did a video a couple of months after
the press release came out. When we went to the hospital, it was
to interview the doctor who had been doing stereotactic breast
biopsies, it was a very new technology back then, there
weren’t very many machines in the area. And we saw the machine
and I think the producer of the video or maybe it was me who
said, “Boy it would be nice if we had a patient.” And then
somebody looked at me and I said, “Okay, I’ll be the
patient.” While I was on the table actually pretending to get
a stereotactic breast biopsy, I remember thinking to myself,
“God I hope I never need this technology.” >>Doctor’s
offscreen voice: And when I fire the gun you’re going to feel a
little pinch. [sound of the needle shooting out] Okay. How
was that? >>Ann: I thought about the technology a lot since
working on the video and doing the press release. It was one of
our most successful spinoff stories. And last year I had a
routine mammogram. I’ve had routine mammograms for a number
of years now, and I was called back. I didn’t think much of it
because I’d been called back twice before and it never
amounted to anything. But this time when I was called back the
radiologist read the second mammogram in real time and said,
“You’ve got four little dots all in a line and they’re very
suspicious. You need to get a biopsy.” When I found out I
needed to get a stereotactic breast biopsy, the doctor, the
radiologist who first told me was amazed that I knew what it
was, and then I told him the story of why I knew what it was,
and that was because I had done the research and written the
press release and done the video on it so many years earlier.
Having researched the technology, I think that made me
a lot less nervous going into the procedure. I knew what it
was, and it actually performed as advertised. It was extremely
easy for me, I didn’t have much pain, I had a fast recovery
time, and I was very grateful that I didn’t have to be put
under and intubated and have an open surgical incision. If you
have to have cancer, this was the best kind. It was caught
extremely early, the procedure that I had was very
conservative, I didn’t even have to have chemo. I had the
surgery, I had radiation, and now I’m on a drug for the next
five or ten years. I will always be an advocate for getting your
mammograms early and often. I’ve been a big fan of space
technology ever since I was a toddler. I actually have a scar
on my chin from Apollo 13 from when the capsule splashed down
and I jumped up and the throw rug slipped out from under me
and I gashed my chin and had to get stitches. So I’ve been a big
fan all my life. I’ve worked on Hubble pretty much my whole
adult life. I’m of course very fond of Hubble, it’s an amazing
machine, and I am in awe of what it’s done for humanity and also
the technology spinoffs that have been brought down to Earth
that help people here on Earth in ways that we never even
expected when the technology was originally developed for Hubble.
www.nasa.gov/hubble @NASAHubble