New breast cancer detection technique

A new cancer screening technique has been developed by the British researchers that can identify tumours far earlier than is currently possible. They have discovered that tumour cells can be detected by scattering X-rays in a unique way, making them much easier to pinpoint.Like all cancers, early detection of breast cancer is crucial for reducing the chances of the tumour shedding cells and spreading secondary tumours elsewhere in the body. But with today's cancer-screening systems, it is very hard to spot growths that are less than 10 millimetres wide, particularly in women younger than 45. That is because healthy breast tissue and tumours look very similar on a conventional mammogram. But a research team at the University College of London has developed a new form of mammogram that can detect tumours only four millimetres wide, when they are too small to spread and are easier to remove by surgery. This technique is called Diffraction-Enhanced Breast Imaging (DEBI), which can detect tumours only 4mm across and is believed to be particularly useful in screening young women. Currently used mammograms detect tumours only when they have grown to between 10 and 12mm in size. These work by measuring how much a beam of X-rays is absorbed by the exposed tissue. But because healthy cells and cancer cells have a similar density, it is tough to tell them apart unless there is a big enough collection of tumour cells. And it is particularly hard to distinguish these cell types from one another in young women, whose tissue contains less fat than that of older women. The researchers discovered that tumour cells have a diffractive effect on X-rays - they scatter them in various directions, but particularly strongly at 9° from the main X-ray beam. The team built a device that measures this effect and has tested it on breast tissue removed from patients undergoing breast reduction operations and from biopsies. In the DEBI imager, X-rays are scanned over the breast as normal. But instead of having a single in-line camera to register the X-ray absorption, DEBI has a separate detector offset at 9°. So if X-rays pass through cancerous tissue, a signal is picked up at the second detector.

This new technique offers the hope of early detection and better management of breast cancer.

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