National Institutes of Health green lights additional research into new breast imaging system.(Brief Article)

2002 AUG 1 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Cancer in premenopausal women tends to be more difficult to spot because their breast tissue is denser, often fooling traditional mammography into a false-negative reading. Ironically, the cancers also tend to be more virulent and grow faster.

A Clemson University physicist is working on a laser-imaging system enabling more accurate views of breast tissue. Given the go-ahead from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Clemson physicist Huabei Jiang will lead the 5-year $1.38 million NIH research project. Laurie Fajardo, a radiologist with Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and Leonard Schutz, an oncologist with Horizon Cancer Center in Spartanburg, will assist in the clinical evaluations.

The painless treatment could become a welcome adjunct to what some women have nicknamed "slammograms."

Early testing showed the system able to detect some growths not detected by a mammogram. It also successfully predicted whether tumors were benign or malignant, which could lead to a reduction in the enormous number of biopsies performed in the United States each year.

Health care statistics indicate that at least three out of four biopsies are negative. In the absence of a definitive screening tool, most physicians opt for invasive tools like biopsies to rule out malignancies.

"Billions of dollars are spent each year for unnecessary biopsies," said Jiang. "If we could eliminate even half of the them, it would be an enormous savings in money, not to mention human pain and lost work productivity."

Jiang said he is encouraged by the early findings but cautioned that the research is in the preliminary stages, and that the technology itself is continually being refined. If proved successful in clinical trials, the imaging system could be a viable addition to mammograms within ...