FAYETTEVILLE (KFSM) -- The Mana Breast Center in Fayetteville is the largest in Northwest Arkansas and provides services to hundreds of women each week. However, it had to be rebuilt following a devastating fire last year.
The center reopened earlier this month after closing Dec. 18, 2015. The fire started in the attic and destroyed almost all of the clinic's screening machines.
All of the patients who traveled to the Fayetteville clinic now had to have their appointments at the clinic in Bentonville. Long-time breast center patient and breast cancer survivor Terri Mallioux said it was no problem for her, but she heard it wasn't as easy for others. Mallioux said it was unsettling because she personally knows how important it is to have regular screenings.
"It can literally be the difference of life and death and in my case I felt it was," she said.
Workers and patients said there was a silver lining to the fire, because now the Breast Center is bigger and better than it was before. The clinic expanded from 10,000 square feet to 12,000 square feet to create two separate clinics, one for screening mammograms and another for diagnostic breast imaging. They also installed the first Federal Drug Administration-approved 3D mammography, which can detect 41 percent more breast cancers than traditional 2D mammography.
"Fayetteville is still a small town in the realm of things, it's not like this big mega city," Mallioux said. "But this breast clinic is a big city breast clinic."