A unique new technology may alert radiologists to breast cancer cells without exposing patients to radiation.
Researchers in The Netherlands are testing a new technology that may allow radiologists to detect and see breast tumors with improved accuracy, yet without subjecting patients to the endless radiation rounds.
Called photoacoustics, it’s a cross between optical and acoustical imaging technique that “uses red and infrared light technology, known as optical mammography, to image tissue and detect tumors,” according to diagnosticimaging.com.
Imaging is so important because it lets radiologists pass on to surgeons the areas that may contain malignancies.
There are two different types of breast cancer, invasive and non-invasive. Thankfully, I had the non-invasive kind, but I did have a recurrence, even though the cancer had not spread beyond the initial tumor. The American Cancer Society reports that in 2011, 230,480 women were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. Almost 40,000 women died.
I was surprised to learn that invasive cancer is much more common than in-situ (confined to the site). Last year, 57,650 women were diagnosed with in-situ cancer, and 230,480 with invasive cancer. If these women’s cancers could be found earlier, maybe the death rate wouldn’t be so high.
Working with 12 patients with known malignancies, researchers at the University of Twente and Medisch Spectrum Twente Hospital in Oldenzaal, tested whether they could identify and see breast tumors through this new technique, according to diagnosticimaging.com.
Although it’s still some way off as a detection tool, researchers feel the findings are encouraging, according to some industry experts.
Diagnosticimaging.com explains that this method can identify cancers “because the blood hemoglobin feeding the tumors absorbs red wavelengths, exposing the contrast between tumors with increased blood vessel activity and normal areas of the breast.”
However, it’s not so easy. The limited bandwidth of the photoacoustic detector can sometimes convey the wrong size or shape of a tumor. To overcome this, diagnosticimaging.com reports, researchers combined the technique’s ability to differentiate between benign and malignant tissues with ultrasound and created the Twente Photoacoustic Mammoscope (PAM).
According to study data, the website reports, this technique is more accurate than conventional diagnostic X-ray, ultrasound imaging, MRI, and tissue exams. Results also show this method produces higher contrast malignant tissue images than traditional X-ray mammography, according to the story.
"While we're very early in the development of this new technology, it is promising,” Michelle Heijblom, a researcher and PhD student at the University of Twente in Enschede, said in a statement about the study, according to optics.org. “Our hope is that these early results will one day lead to the development of a safe, comfortable, and accurate alternative or adjunct to conventional techniques for detecting breast tumors."
