At the center of the continuing controversy over mammograms is the potential that too frequent screening will produce too many unneeded biopsies and surgeries. As with all imaging technologies, however, mammography technology continues to advance. This issue of the Health Imaging Hub newsletter carries two stories about research advances that continue to improve the value of imaging tools for clinical practice.
The report, “Density of Mammographic Masses are a Significant Predictor of Cancer”on a research study that shows that the long suspected, but often-underutilized descriptor of suspicious lumps, may be more useful than thought. Dr. Ryan Woods and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin found that of 118 malignant lesions biopsied, 70.2 percent were high-density masses compared to 22.3 percent of the isodense or low-density masses. While it is an incremental advance, Woods points out that, “We know that mammograms are the best screening tool we have for finding cancer early, so anything we can do to improve diagnostic accuracy is useful.”
At the same time, in the article, “Advance Makes Real-time Imaging of Cellular Processes Possible” an imaging advance that may some day allow doctors to see disease processes in real time promises to improve treatments as doctors will be able to see at the cellular level whether treatments are working, or even necessary as immune cells mount a response to injury or disease.
Reporting in the journal Nature Methods, a research team led by Dr. Max Krummel, associate professor of Pathology at UCSF, has developed a new imaging technique that allows researchers to observe cellular interactions in real time without disrupting normal function. In their study they showed a series of events in an immune response to lung injury in mice. The advance overcomes the problem of blurred images produced by conventional means and results in clear images of cells interacting. A stunning series of videos are posted online in supplementary materials created by Dr. Mark R. Looney, co-first author and assistant professor in Medicine and Laboratory Medicine at UCSF.
While the clinical application of the technology is a long way off, Looney says it could soon be applied to lung biopsies. For now, Krummel says the research application could potentially lead to significant advances in understanding how cells are organized and deployed.
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