The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility reports that “a positron emission mammography (PEM) device designed and built by Jefferson Lab scientists successfully imaged breast cancer tumors in a pilot study conducted by Duke University Medical Center researchers”. From the press release:
A study published in the February issue of the journal Radiology shows that a positron emission mammography (PEM) device designed and built by Jefferson Lab scientists is capable of imaging breast cancer tumors. In the pilot study, conducted by Duke University Medical Center researchers, the unit imaged 18 malignant tumors in 23 patients receiving additional screening due to suspicious mammograms…
Stan Majewski, Jefferson Lab Detector Group Leader and principal investigator on the instrumentation part of the project, led the team that designed and built the PEM unit. He says PEM imaging works differently than mammography. It reveals breast tissue that is showing higher metabolism than other areas. “The imager we built is a functional imager. That is, it indicates something about physiology, which can be different from anatomy,” he says.
To fuel rapid growth, cancer cells use more glucose (sugar) than surrounding cells. In this imaging procedure, a small dose of radioactive molecules that look like sugar, called fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), are injected into the body, where they’re absorbed by cancerous tumors. The PEM device pinpoints tumors in the breast by detecting the location of FDG uptake. “By detecting areas that have increased glucose metabolism, you can often distinguish a cancer between normal surrounding tissue, which in general has low uptake of FDG,” Dr. Rosen says…
Dr. Rosen says the study was indeed a success, “What we concluded is that our PEM unit is capable of detecting cancer, it’s capable of demonstrating small breast malignancies, and that it can be performed in the breast clinic with a small dose of FDG and a very short, 5-minute acquisition time.”
The Jefferson Lab/Duke team is now modifying the PEM system and imaging procedure to allow for better detection of lesions located near the chest wall.
In the picture above, the PEM unit is on the left and a standard x-ray mammography unit is on the right.
More at JLab…