New Method May Catch Killer Breast Cancer Earlier

Yahoo! News ^ | 2/19/03 | Reuters - London

[NormsRevenge]

LONDON (Reuters) - A new screening technique being developed by scientists in England may help turn the tables on breast cancer by identifying tumors far earlier.

Breast cancer is one of the biggest killers of women across the world, accounting for more than 43,000 deaths a year in the United States and 13,000 in Britain alone.

As with all cancers, early detection is key to enhanced survival rates.

Currently mammograms can only detect tumors when they have grown to between 10 and 12 millimeters across, but New Scientist magazine reported that a technique being developed at University College London can spot them as small as four millimeters.

The system relies on the discovery that tumor cells reflect X-rays in a unique manner, leaving a detectable signature in a new technique dubbed DEBI (Diffraction Enhanced Breast Imaging).

It will be particularly useful in detecting growths in the breasts of young women where there is only a marginal x-ray image distinction between healthy and cancerous tissue.

In the DEBI technique, x-rays are scanned over the breast as usual but a second detector is added to the machine to capture those defracted through a telltale nine degrees from the main beam.

However, the difficulty facing physicist Robert Speller's team is finding out how to attach the extra detector and analyzer to existing mammograph machines, the magazine said.