Specialized ultrasound technique reduces need for breast biopsies by 25%
An innovative, noninvasive imaging technique has the potential to significantly reduce the number of unnecessary breast biopsies.
Ultrasound-guided diffuse optical tomography (US-DOT) combines imaging with near-infrared light to create 3D pictures of tissues. These pictures offer insight beyond structural alterations, also providing data on functional variances, including total hemoglobin concentration maps and blood oxygen saturation levels. Hemoglobin is carried by red blood cells and absorbs the near-infrared light, and higher hemoglobin is associated with the presence of malignant cells.
New research suggests the technique is especially beneficial for imaging of the breast, with the potential to prevent women from having to undergo biopsies likely to yield negative results.
“With diffuse optical tomography, the resolution is lower because light is scattered in the tissue,” explained study leader Quing Zhu, PhD, a professor of engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. “Because of the ultrasound localization, we avoid the uncertainty and improve diffuse optical tomography.”
Zhu and colleagues recently tested the technique on a group of 226 patients who were part of a double-blind clinical trial. Each underwent US-DOT, with findings compared against radiologists’ BI-RADS assessments of the participants’ ultrasound and mammogram exams (once with US-DOT data and once without).
Of the 226 women included in the analysis, 70 were diagnosed with invasive cancers, while 7 were diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ; there were 9 high-risk lesions and 140 benign. The total hemoglobin concentration for patients with biopsy-confirmed malignancy was markedly higher compared to individuals with benign lesions, while blood oxygen saturation was significantly lower in those diagnosed with cancer. The team determined that the inclusion of US-DOT data would have reduced the need for biopsy in nearly 25% of the participants.
“The radiologists did not know our results, but evaluated each patient based on standard of care to get a risk evaluation and determine whether to do a biopsy,” Zhu noted. “Then they used our breast lesion hemoglobin maps and oxygenation saturation levels to decide upgrading or downgrading the lesion regarding a biopsy decision.”
The team is now working to make the system more affordable and fine-tuning its reconstruction capabilities in order to make it commercially available in clinical settings.
Learn more about the findings here.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.