Originally published January 2 2006
Breast MRI scans will be easier to study thanks to technological advances
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and Confirma, a software company, have joined to produce a computer aided evaluation system that will make it easier for radiologists to accurately interpret images of the breast obtained through MRI studies.
The Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and Confirma, a Kirkland, Washington manufacturer of computer aided detection software, today announced that research being presented at the 91st Annual Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) meeting demonstrates that computer aided evaluation for breast images done by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may improve accuracy in diagnostic interpretation.
In an abstract entitled "Analysis of computer aided evaluation for breast MRI in discriminating benign and malignant lesions," SCCA physicians compared the accuracy of breast MRI interpretation without and with commercially available computer aided evaluation (CAE) in discriminating benign from malignant lesions.
"Our study shows that computer aided evaluation can significantly assist radiologists in more accurately interpreting breast MRI studies," said Wendy B. DeMartini, M.D., a radiologist at the SCCA and an associate professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
"The presence of significant enhancement was highly sensitive for predicting malignancy, with 38/41 (93%) malignant lesions demonstrating CAE-detected enhancement at both the 50% and 100% thresholds," the authors said.
False positive rates were reduced by 8.8% at a 50% enhancement threshold (NS), and by 23.0% at a 100% enhancement threshold (p=0.02).
There were no significant differences between enhancement patterns of benign and malignant lesions, with all lesions demonstrating a wide range of signal intensity peaks and a wide range of washout, plateau, and persistent patterns of enhancement."
The Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, established in 1998, unites the adult and pediatric cancer-care services of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, University of Washington Academic Medical Center and Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center.
A major focus of the SCCA is to speed the transfer of new diagnostic and treatment techniques from the research setting to the patient bedside while providing premier, patient-focused cancer care.
The SCCA has three clinical-care sites: an outpatient clinic on the Fred Hutchinson campus, a pediatric-inpatient unit at Children's and an adult-inpatient unit at UW Medical Center.
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