Fast, accurate breast cancer screening in eight seconds

Friday, 2 December 2011 9:23 AM

A new breast cancer screening system has been developed by scientists in Bristol, offering faster, more accurate and more comfortable screening.

The MARIA (Multistatic Array processing for Radiowave Image Acquisition) system also promises to provide more reliable results in younger women who are currently overlooked for screening.

The technology came from a land mine detection project and now takes just eight seconds to provide a three-dimensional breast scan that provides results that are comparable with X-ray mammograms.

It was developed by Micrima, a spin-out from Bristol University. Initial trials had a diagnostic success rate of around 80%, which makes the system a strong competitor to X-ray mammography in dense tissue. The team are now aiming for a success rate of over 90%.

Dr Mike Shere, breast specialist at Southmead Hospital said: "We are very excited about the potential of this completely new method of breast imaging. It has none of the disadvantages of the current methods, ultrasound, mammography and MRI. It is quick, safe, comfortable and cheap, and is already producing good images with high sensitivity."

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