Elastrography Can Instantly Identify Breast Cancer

Posted on December 8, 2006

MSNBC.com reports that experimental ultrasound technology called elastography has been very successful in early trials at locating cancer. Elastrography is able to instantly indicate whether a breast lump is cancer or a benign lesion.

An experimental ultrasound technique that measures how easily breast lumps compress and bounce back could enable doctors to determine instantly whether a woman has cancer or not without doing a biopsy.
In a small study of 80 women, the technique -- called "elastography" -- distinguished harmless lumps from malignant ones with nearly 100 percent accuracy.
If the results hold up in a larger study, elastography could save thousands of women from the waiting, cost, discomfort and anxiety of a biopsy, in which cells are removed from the breast -- sometimes with a needle, sometimes with a scalpel -- and examined under a microscope.

The article says that of the 1 million biopses performed on breast lump each year about 80% of them turn out to be benign. This causes women a great deal of stess and fear and wastes a lot of time and money simply because today's technology is not perfect.

"There's a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, a lot of fear involved" with biopsies, said Susan Brown, manager of health education for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. "And there's the cost of leaving work to make a second appointment. If this can be done instead of a biopsy, there would be a real cost reduction."

Here's how Jonathan Ophir, one of the pioneers of the test, explains the technology.

To explain elastography, Ophir likens the body to a box-spring mattress, but "a crazy mattress made out of millions of small springs and each one is a little different. Each is moving around at a different rate, depending on their individual stiffness." Cancerous tumors are like stiff springs. Normal tissue and benign lesions compress more easily.

The article cited some doctors that believe elastrography will be used in the future but that biopses will probably continue both for legal reasons and because doctors don't want to miss diagnosing a possible cancerous tumor.