Northeastern University and Mass General Hospital Increase the Accuracy, While Reducing the Diagnosis Time, for Breast Cancer Detection

WALTHAM, Mass., Feb. 26 - Researchers at the Northeastern University Computer Architecture Research Lab (NUCAR) and the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS) are teaming with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) on a promising new breast cancer detection technology that improves breast cancer screening accuracy. The team is applying new supercomputing technology to a 30-year-old imaging modality called tomosynthesis, which until now has been relegated to research labs due to its massive and expensive computational requirements.

Called Digital Breast Tomosynthesis (DBT), the system creates a 3D image of the breast using a series of x-ray projections collected during a 20- second, 40-degree sweep. It makes cancer lesions easier to detect among dense breast tissue by creating a stack of 1mm spaced high-resolution slices that can be displayed individually, or assembled into a 3D view that can be rendered for more careful examination.

source: ThomasNet