Better Breast Cancer Screens

A new three-dimensional breast imaging technique could increase the detection of early stage cancers and reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies. Breast cancer is highly treatable if detected early.

The conventional method of mammography projects x-rays through the breast onto a sheet of photographic film or detector screen. Tumours show up as a shadow as they are more dense than healthy tissues. However, this technique only detects 65-70% of breast cancers as small tumours can be obscured by surrounding breast structures. Biopsies have shown only 10-20% of women with positive mammographies have breast cancer due to overlapping normal breast tissues appearing like a tumour on the mammography.

The new technique uses x-rays to produce 3-D breast scans. It is called full-field digital mammography tomosynthesis. It involves collecting a sequence of 10 to 20 images in a digital detector. A computer then turns these images into a series of 2-D cross-sections which builds a sharp and detailed picture of the breast tissue.

Mammography tomosynthesis is also being looked into for lung-cancer screening as it uses 25% lower x-ray dose than conventional computer tomography scanning.

(Source: Nature)