New Imager Detects Tiny Breast Tumors and Takes Biopsy
Scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, the West Virginia University School of Medicine and the University of Maryland School of Medicine have developed a new imaging device which not only detects breast tumors too small to be seen by other imaging systems, it also gets a sample for cancer tests.
The innovative technology, known as positron emission mammography (PEM), is an enhanced version of positron emission tomography (PET) imaging already in use. This new PEM/PET use two pairs of flat components specifically designed to capture 3D, high-resolution PET images of lesions inside the breast. While standard PETs offer image resolutions over five mm, PEM/PETs have an image resolution below 2mm, so tumors can be found earlier.
Plus, if physicians using PEM/PET locate a suspicious growth, they can use one set of PEM/PET heads to guide a robotic arm that takes a needle biopsy of the tissue – a feature that lets patients find out if the tumors are benign or malignant faster.
Jefferson Lab’s Radiation Detector and Medical Imaging Group developed the on-board electronics and image software for PEM/PET and WVU researchers came up the motion-control software. WVU radiology professor Ray Raylman, PhD, has obtained a patent on the concept. As one researcher elaborated,
“It is another example of nuclear physics detector technology that we have put a lot of time and effort into adapting for the common good.”
Dr Stan Majewski
JLab Radiation Detector and Medical Imaging Group
The team is now working on adding additional components for taking x-ray CT scans and they plan to conduct clinical trials after system testing is complete.
If you’d like to learn more about the imaging device, results of its first tests are published in the February 7, 2008, edition of Physics in Medicine and Biology.
Source: Jefferson Lab News
Related Links: WVU Health News; ScienceDaily; msnbc
Related Podcast: Breast MRI – Specialized screening for breast cancer from The Mayo Clinic
Technorati Tags: cancer screening; oncology; Jefferson Science Associates, LLC; Southeastern Universities Research Associates, Inc; Newport News, VA
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