Experimental Technique Lights Up Breast Cancer Tumors

New Treatment Allows for More Precise Detection of Tumors
Experimental Technique Lights Up Breast Cancer Tumors

By JOHN MCKENZIE
Sept. 4, 2008

Mammograms have long been the gold standard for detecting breast cancer, but they still miss as much as 15 percent of tiny tumors, usually located in dense breast tissue.

"We need a better way to detect cancer in the 25 percent of women over the age of 40 who have dense breasts," said Dr. Edward Coleman of Duke University Medical Center.

Molecular breast imaging, or MBI, is the latest experimental approach.

On a mammogram, a type of X-ray, too much healthy dense tissue lights up, limiting doctors' ability to see small tumors. But with molecular breast imaging, women receive an injection of a short-acting, "radioactive tracer" that travels through the body and "latches on" to cancer cells. The revolutionary new cameras can then detect small tumors that mammograms often miss.

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