Improving the accuracy of cancer diagnoses
Tiny calcium deposits can be a telltale sign of breast cancer. However, in the majority of cases these microcalcifications signal a benign condition. A new diagnostic procedure developed at MIT and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) could help doctors more accurately distinguish between cancerous and noncancerous cases.When microcalcifications are spotted through mammography, doctors perform a follow-up biopsy to remove the suspicious tissue and test it for cancer. In 15 to 25 percent of cases, however, they are unable to retrieve the tissue that contains the calcium deposits, leading to an inconclusive diagnosis. The patient then has to undergo a much more invasive surgical procedure.The new method, which uses a special type of spectroscopy to locate microcalcifications during the biopsy, could dramatically reduce the rate of inconclusive diagnosis, according to the researchers. In a study appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Dec. 24, they...