New Breast Imaging machine is making detecting breast cancer easier. This is good news because identifying cancer earlier is essential to increase survival rate. Considering Breast cancer is very common in women and occurs occasionally in men it is important to note that this is great news for our health.
Results which recognized mammography as a successful diagnostic tool for cancer were first published in 1967. Since that time, breast self-examination and a mammography have been considered essential in the identification of breast cancer. The goal of mammograms is the early detection of breast cancer, but this technique has not always been reliable, with false positive and false negative readings occurring in a portion of cases.
Doctors are now using newer breast imaging techniques to diagnose and stage breast cancer. Breast-specific gamma imaging (BSGI) and positron emission mammography (PEM) rely on the use of radiotracers to detect cancer cells instead of the X-rays used in mammograms. The BSGI tracer is positively charged, while cancer cells are negatively charged. The tracer diffuses around cancer cells and highlights them in the process. The PEM tracer uses glucose in this process. Glucose is used by all cells for energy, with cancer cells using more energy and more of the tracer which are highlighted on the image.
Dr. Patrick Borgen, director of the Brooklyn Breast Cancer Program at the Maimonides Cancer Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. said, “I think it’s exciting that we’re moving more to functional imaging, but mammography is the mainstay of breast cancer screening and neither of these tests is in a position to replace mammography as the cornerstone of cancer detection. These tests are adjuncts.” Borgen, who was not involved in studies involving either BSGI of PEM procedures, stated that neither test is widely available and both can be costly.
Studies of both procedures and their results were presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America held November 30th to December 5th in Chicago. In one of the studies PEM was used to assess how the imaging technique was affected by the density of breasts or the hormonal status of the patient in 208 women with breast cancer. Dr. Kathy Schilling, director of breast imagining and intervention at the Center for Breast Care at the Boca Raton Community Hospital in Florida said that the PEM scanner does immobilize the breast, but does not compress it. Schilling was the lead author of the study. Schilling said the results were similar to, or better than, breast MRI tests. She believes that the PEM will probably be used as breast MRI’s have been used, because MRI causes so many false positives and unnecessary biopsies.
The second study, reviewed data from 159 women who had been found to have a suspicious lesion as a result of a mammogram. The women then had BSGI scanning which uses mild compression to capture images. The testing revealed suspicious lesions in 29 percent of the women, a third of these lesions were found to be cancerous. This study was conducted by Rachel F. Brem, M.D., of the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington DC, and colleagues.
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