In Sweden alone, an estimated 6300 women are affected with breast cancer every year. Out of these women, 1500 will not survive. Every tenth woman is expected to get the diagnose in her life time, a number that will only increase with our growing older population. The sooner the cancer is detected, the better the odds for survival. At Luleå University of Technology, a recent project is using Opto acoustics to develop a method that will enable a sooner detection of breast cancer.
It has been known for long that the tumor’s size at the time of detection is directly related to the chances of survival. Follow-ups performed sixteen years after the diagnose show that 95 percent of the women discovered with a tumor smaller than five millimeters, are still alive. The corresponding number for women whose tumors have become between twenty and fifty millimeters are just 50 percent. Today, mammography screening is used for examination of breast tissue. It is the best method available, even though x-ray radiation includes certain risks and no tumor smaller than ten millimeters has ever been detected with mammography.
Mikael Sjödahl is a professor at Luleå University of Technology and works with the project Opto acoustic 3D-depiction of tissue. The purpose is to further develop the method, in order to be able to perform selective detection of specific tissue.
“It is about generating sound from the points in the tissue we want to look at” Sjödahl explains, “what we do is send in a laser pulse with a pre determined wave length which is well absorbed by blood.” The reason being that tumors are very blood filled since they grow so fast. The generated sound is then measured and reconstructed in order to depict the source of the sound. Just like with an ultra sound, this creates a picture of the tissue, but with the difference that only the areas absorbed by the laser pulse will show, so called selective depiction. Using this method, one should be able to discover tumors as small as a tenth of a millimeter. This would make the method very useful for other purposes as well, such as detecting prostate cancer, which is even more common than breast cancer.
The goal is to have a system for demonstration up and running within the next four years. Sjödahl is confident about the time estimation but as of today, he recognizes optimizing the equipment as a limiting factor.
“The sound we are using is of such high frequency that since we are supposed to use a camera, the problem is to find one that can match that”, he says. The camera would have to be able to take millions of pictures each second.
“But it is a work in progress” Sjödahl assures. The project is collaborating with a company for business development and there is no doubt that the interest as well of the need for this method is enormous. Being able to discover breast cancer in a much earlier stage than what is possible today would save many lives and a great amount of suffering.
CMTF, c/o Tillämpad fysik och elektronik
Umeå universitet, 901 87 Umeå
Tel: +46 (0)90-786 96 38.
E-post: Britt Andersson.
