Naviscan, Inc., a provider of 3D molecular breast imaging (MBI) systems, has entered into a distribution agreement with Chindex Medical Limited to market and service Naviscan’s high-resolution organ-specific PET scanner in the People’s Republic of China, including Hong Kong and Macau.

The agreement introduces Positron Emission Mammography (PEM), the scanner’s breast application, as a new tool available to Chinese women in their fight against breast cancer.

Naviscan manufactures a commercially-available PEM scanner and PEM-guided biopsy system.  The scanner uses PET technology to produce tomographic images that allow physicians to visualize and biopsy breast tumors as small as 1.3 mm, the width of a grain of rice.  In recently published data, PEM has been found to be significantly more precise at identifying benign and cancerous lesions, in what scientists call “specificity,”reducing the number of unnecessary biopsies, reducing patient trauma and costs associated with unnecessary procedures.  

Although film screen mammography is currently the best way to detect breast cancer, both the sensitivity and specificity of this technique are limited, according to medical experts. The sensitivity of mammography is approximately 88 percent for detectable breast cancer. The remaining twelve percent are typically detected at physical exam. The specificity of mammography is much lower than its sensitivity, approximately 15-35 percent, so many women are subjected to breast biopsies for benign lesions.

Mammography is inherently limited in its ability to detect breast cancer because it relies on demonstrating morphologic differences between cancer and benign lesions. Positron Emission Mammography uses injected radioactively “tagged” sugar-like molecules (called FDG) to mark or make visible tissue which is more likely to be cancerous. The cancer tumors accumulate more of the radioactive tracer which appears to the tissue as if it is glucose or sugar, a source of much needed energy for growth. Since tumor cells are growing more quickly than healthy tissue the cancer shows up as “hot” spots in the PEM images.

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