Study shows the use of adapted gamma camera in breast cancer diagnosis

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Gamma camera could detect breast cancers too small for mammography, according to a trial of patients with suspicious lesions.
Mammography has been proven to be of value in detecting early breast cancer. However, the technique may not pick up really small breast cancer tumors, especially among those with dense breast tissue. Yet women with dense breast tissue are actually more prone to breast cancer. Therefore, a new technique that can pick up small tumors in dense breast tissue is welcome. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic now report upon an adapted gamma camera technique that can categorize this kind of breast tumor.

They used the gamma camera on a group of 100 patients with suspicious breast lesions, which had a diameter of four fifths of an inch or less. Surgery found 82 cancers in 54 patients. The gamma camera detected 76 of the cancers, giving the new technique a 93 per cent success rate. The researchers also report upon an ongoing larger trial of 2,000 patients which shows that in the first 250 patients, four cancers were detected on the gamma camera, three of which were not visible on a conventional mammogram. Therefore, the new gamma camera technique has important potential for detecting small breast cancers that might not be detectable on a mammogram.

Source
San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium 16th December 2006