Better Breast Cancer Detection
This press release is copyrighted by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE). Its use is granted only to journalists and news media.
Breast cancer remains a leading cause of cancer deaths among women in many parts of the world. In the United States alone, 40 000 women die of the disease each year. But better diagnosis and treatment have managed to push death rates down two percent each year over the past decade. Film-based mammography has had a hand in that decline. Alternative technologies for imaging breast cancer are in various stages of development, but they will be playing only a supporting role to conventional mammography for some time, writes associate editor Samuel K. Moore in the May issue of IEEE Spectrum.
The U.S. Institute of Medicine says that film-based mammography is the standard by which these alternatives must be measured. Because of its success and high spatial and contrast resolution requirements, mammography is a difficult standard to meet. In addition, new technologies must be affordable by those often cash-strapped radiology clinics where they could make a difference.
One technology trying to meet the challenge is digital X-ray mammography. Many X-ray machine makers have digital mammography devices in development, and one has gotten approval for use from the Food and Drug Administration. The technologies behind digital mammography fall into two broad categories, writes Moore. Some convert X-rays into visible light, which is picked up by solid-state detectors to produce a digitized image. Others convert X-rays directly into electrical signals.
Once a digital image is obtained, it must be read carefully to find the subtle signs of cancer. Radiologists now have help with this task in the form of computer-aided detection systems. These software-based tools read digitized mammograms and mark suspicious spots on the image for further analysis by the radiologist.
Still, medical imaging based only on the physical characteristics of a cancer may not be the best way to detect early signs of the disease. Researchers both in industry and at universities are trying to improve on imaging technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging, by creating 'smart contrast agents.' These chemicals would interact with a tumor's unique biochemistry to highlight cancer.
Contact: Samuel K. Moore, 212 419 7921, [email protected].For faxed copies of the complete article ("Better Breast Cancer Detection" by Associate Editor Samuel K. Moore, IEEE Spectrum, May 2001, pp. 50-54) or to arrange an interview, contact: Nancy T. Hantman, 212 419 7561, [email protected].
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