Pioneering Breast Scanner Holds Promise for Detecting, Diagnosing Cancer Earlier

Perhaps no one can appreciate the importance of early cancer detection as much as Izora Armstrong. That’s because UVA Cancer Center researchers, using a first-of-its-kind hybrid breast imaging device, found what mammography, ultrasound, MRI and even a needle biopsy couldn’t.

“I feel truly blessed that I came to UVA, that they gave me the chance to be a part of this study,” says Armstrong, 53, a school bus driver in southern Fauquier County. “I went through all the regular tests and did what women are supposed to do and I still wouldn’t have known I had breast cancer if it wasn’t for UVA.”

The unique device, the dual modality tomographic (DMT) breast scanner, developed by UVA researchers, has shown in its pilot study the ability to pinpoint to a much finer degree the exact location of breast masses – and, even more important, to more accurately distinguish between cancerous and harmless lesions.

The pilot clinical study, led by Mark B. Williams, PhD, associate professor of radiology, biomedical engineering and physics at the University of Virginia, appears in the April 2010 issue of Radiology.

The DMT breast scanner works by marrying two cutting-edge imaging methods, one that obtains 3-D anatomical (structural) imaging and another that obtains 3-D biological (functional) imaging, into one integrated device. The machine runs the scans sequentially, obtaining both types of images with the breast in the same, immobilized position.

The unique device, the dual modality tomographic (DMT) breast scanner, developed by UVA researchers, has shown in its pilot study the ability to pinpoint to a much finer degree the exact location of breast masses, and to more accurately distinguish between cancerous and harmless lesions.

“Using the most current breast imaging methods, only about one in four of all biopsied breast lesions are actually malignant - that is, the positive predictive value is about 25 percent - so there’s a great deal of room for improved imaging diagnostic capabilities,” says Williams. “Our pilot study indicates promising results toward reducing the number of false positive imaging diagnoses, which would therefore eliminate many unnecessary biopsies.”

The scanner also is particularly useful in revealing the so-called wolf in sheep’s clothing for women with radiographically dense breasts. The millions of women with thicker than average breast tissue or fibrous breasts continue to present a daunting diagnostic challenge for current breast imaging methods.

Such was the case with Armstrong, who has fibrocystic disease and who several years ago had undergone two needle biopsies (with normal results). Most recently, her physician had found yet another suspicious spot on her mammogram and scheduled her for a breast biopsy, which came back normal - negative for cancer.

Fortunately for Armstrong, she had agreed prior to her biopsy to participate in the UVA pilot study testing the unique DMT scanning device developed by Williams and his team.