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Breast cancer screening Clearer images with radiation-free mammography
Although breast cancer is the highest-mortality cancer among women in Germany, by no means all women go to mammography screening. According to experts, breast cancer can be successfully treated with early diagnosis in most cases. In a new research project, the breast examinations are to be significantly improved.
Cancer with the highest death rate
Breast cancer is the cancer with the highest death rate among women in Germany. Every year, around 17,000 people die from it and around 70,000 fall ill each year. According to the German Society of Senology (DGS), about 80 percent of ill women today can be successfully treated. Much depends on an early diagnosis. Since 2002, women in this country have the opportunity to participate in the mammography screening for free. In a new research project, breast examinations are to be significantly improved in the future.
In a new research project, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is to be significantly improved for breast examinations. (Image: Tyler Olson / fotolia.com) Not all women take part in the breast cancer screening program
In Germany, women between the ages of 50 and 69 can take part in the breast cancer prevention program free of charge. But only about every second goes to mammography screening.
Often women are afraid of the examination - it is not completely painless. Although it is known that the examination does not provide any guarantee, more than 17,000 carcinomas could be detected by mammography screening within one year.
Since February 2017, the Freiburg University Medical Center is now managing a project in which magnetic resonance imaging, or MRT for short, is to be substantially improved for breast examinations.
More detailed conclusions about the condition of the fabric
"The goal is the development of an accessory for MRI, which allows a tenfold stronger signal differentiation than current clinical MRI systems," the hospital writes in a statement.
As a result, much more detailed conclusions about the condition of the tissue should be possible. This is especially important in breast cancer diagnostics.
The radiation-free process could in the long term supplement or even replace the previous standard method of X-ray mammography, the experts hope.
Advanced MRI procedure
The three-year project will be carried out in cooperation with the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the University Hospital Erlangen.
In the current project phase, the aim is to investigate how the method can be technically implemented for use in humans in order to further develop the device into a prototype that can be used in patients in a second phase.
"The MRI procedure, which we have developed further in this project, will allow us to collect detailed information on the content, changes and shape of individual cells. This makes it possible to calculate very precisely which cellular changes have occurred in a suspicious tissue, such as a tumor, "Dr. Maxim Zaitsev, research group leader at the Department of Radiology - Medicine Physics of the University Medical Center Freiburg.
Technical feasibility is checked
In order to make the technology fit for clinical use, the scientists are developing Zaitsev now an accessory, which is referred to as a high-performance diffusion probe.
In addition to the usual, uniform MRI magnetic field, this probe is intended to generate another, very strong spatially variable magnetic field. This significantly increases the informative value and accuracy of the images.
In preliminary studies, a basic design has already been developed, "Now we are reviewing the technical feasibility of the approach and want to prove patient safety," Dr. Zaitsev.
The basis of the imaging used by the scientists is a special MRI procedure: diffusion-weighted MRI. This characterizes the movement of water molecules in the tissue.
Doctors use this method every day in clinical diagnostics, such as stroke or cancer. However, accuracy and sensitivity have not been high enough to draw conclusions about microscopic structures. (Ad)