Pioneering Breast Scanner Holds Great Promise for Accurately Detecting and Diagnosing Breast Cancer at Its Earliest Stages

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., April 1, 2010 - Perhaps no one can appreciate the importance of early cancer detection as much as Izora Armstrong. That's because UVA Cancer Center researchers, using a first-of-its-kind hybrid breast imaging device, found what mammography, ultrasound, MRI and even a needle biopsy couldn't.

"I feel truly blessed that I came to UVA, that they gave me the chance to be a part of this study," says Armstrong, 53, a school bus driver in southern Fauquier County. "I went through all the regular tests and did what women are supposed to do and I still wouldn't have known I had breast cancer if it wasn't for UVA."

The unique device, the dual modality tomographic (DMT) breast scanner, developed by UVA researchers, has shown in its pilot study the ability to pinpoint to a much finer degree the exact location of breast masses - and, even more important, to more accurately distinguish between cancerous and harmless lesions.

The pilot clinical study, led by Mark B. Williams, PhD, associate professor of radiology, biomedical engineering and physics at the University of Virginia, appears in the April 2010 issue of Radiology.

The DMT breast scanner works by marrying two cutting-edge imaging methods, one that obtains 3-D anatomical (structural) imaging and another that obtains 3-D biological (functional) imaging, into one integrated device. The machine runs the scans sequentially, obtaining both types of images with the breast in the same, immobilized position.

source: University of Virginia Health System