Ultrasound Alternative To Mammograms

Radiologists can now suspend a patient's breast in water, and then send sound waves through the water in order to image breast tissue. The device uses 256 ultrasonic sensors to assemble 50 to 70 two dimensional slices into a three dimensional image of the breast that reveals cancers larger than five millimeters in diameter.

Each year more than 18-million women get a mammogram. But up to 15% of mammograms miss tell-tale signs of cancer. Now, a new technology that may be better at finding cancer and saving lives could be available.

So far it's been able to see almost all the cancers that are above five millimeters.
Developed by physicists and radiologists, the new technology, called computed ultrasound risk evaluation device -- or CURE -- does not use radiation, lasts one minute and is pain-free. While the woman's breast is suspended in water, ultrasound sensors transmit sound waves through the water. The device measures how the sound waves travel through the breast tissue. Computer images help doctors better pinpoint cancerous tissue.
"Based on the more limited trials it remains to be proven that it is more accurate than mammography.
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HOW ULTRASOUND WORKS:

Ultrasound is a medical imaging technique that uses high-frequency sound waves and their echoes. It is similar to how bats navigate in the dark, and the SONAR used by submarines underwater. The machine transmits high-frequency sound pulses into the body using a probe. The sound waves travel through the body and bounce off any boundaries, such as between fluid and soft tissue, tissue and bone. Some of the sound waves are reflected back to the probe, while others travel further through until they bounce off another boundary. All the reflected waves are recorded by the machine, which then calculates the distance each sound wave traveled based on how long it took the sound wave's echo to return. This data is used to form a two-dimensional image based on the distances and intensities of those echoes.


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