A new scanner that uses gamma rays to see changes in live cells may find breast cancer even earlier than standard mammograms, U.S. researchers said Thursday.
IF SHOWN to work in large groups of women, it may help doctors catch and treat breast cancer at its earliest stages —when it is easiest to treat. It would also be a more comfortable option for women, who now must suffer having their breasts pressed between cold, hard plates for mammograms.
Martin Tornai, an associate professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at Duke University Medical Center, said he plans to start testing the device on women this spring.
The camera should be especially useful for detecting tumors in large or dense breasts, which are difficult to image using traditional mammography because X-rays often cannot penetrate them, Tornai told a meeting of breast cancer specialists in San Antonio, Texas.
And the device can look for signs that cancer has spread to nearby tissue and lymph nodes, he said.
The device may also be useful in determining how well chemotherapy or radiation therapy is working in breast cancer patients — perhaps showing dead cells not yet disposed of by the body.
The gamma ray device resembles other so-called nuclear medicine equipment in that a cancer-specific radioactive chemical is first injected into a patient’s bloodstream.
Cancer cells absorb large amounts of the tracer, called sestamibi, because they have large numbers of mitochondria. Mitochondria are the power sources of the cell and cancer cells have more of them because they are fast-growing.
“Nuclear imaging tracers like sestamibi show up in both pre-malignant and malignant breast cells as a little light bulb in the middle of a dim space,” Tornai said in a statement.
The sestamibi has attached to it a radioactive particle, which can be detected by gamma rays.
Like x-rays, gamma rays easily penetrate tissue and can be detected by a gamma ray camera.
Tornai said the amount of radiation patients are exposed to is very small and relatively safe.
Existing gamma ray cameras are large whole-body scanners that take a single, two-dimensional image that cannot generally take multiple views of the breast, Tornai said.
His miniature camera orbits the breast, creating a detailed image that a computer can make into a three-dimensional view.
So far it has only been tested on artificial breasts.
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