A NEW TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED WILL BE A THIRD EYE DURING BREAST BIOPSIES

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A NEW TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED WILL BE A THIRD EYE DURING BREAST BIOPSIES
06 July 2004 - University of Wisconsin-Madison

A new technology developed by a research group headed by Nimmi Ramanujam, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be a "third eye" during breast biopsies and can increase the chance for an accurate clinical diagnosis of breast cancer.

Doctors currently use X-ray or ultrasound, two-dimensional pictures, to guide the biopsy needle into a three-dimensional region. To ensure that they are doing the biopsy at the right spot, they take up to a dozen tissue samples.

"If you're in the wrong spot and you don't get the cancer, then you're basically concluding that this woman doesn't have a disease that needs to be treated," says Ramanujam.

She says missed diagnoses occur in about 7 percent, or 70,000, of the women who have biopsies. An additional 6 percent of the women who have biopsies must have the procedures repeated because the results are inconclusive.

Ramanujam and graduate students Carmalyn Lubawy and Changfang Zhu are harnessing the power of light to add another dimension of information about the tissue properties at the needle tip. Light can provide structural information such as cell or nuclear size, as well as measurements of hemoglobin oxygenation, vascularity and cellular metabolic rate, all of which are hallmarks of carcinogenesis and can indicate whether the needle has hit the mark, she says.

"These chemical and structural features are intrinsic inside tissue," she says. "They're not things you have to add, so you don't have to add any dyes to make it work."

Her group has built fiber-optic probes that doctors easily can thread down the existing hollow biopsy needle to the tip to help them find the right area to sample. The researchers are testing probes in both the near-infrared wavelength, which allows light to go deeper but probes fewer molecules, and UV-visible wavelength range, which allows them to probe a large number of molecules but with limited sampling depth.

Initially, they used the probe to analyze healthy and cancerous tissue samples from patients who underwent surgery and identified cancerous tissue with 90-percent accuracy.

Now, with two grants totaling more than $1.2 million from the National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, the group will test the probe during biopsies of about 250 patients. At project's end, the researchers will determine which light wavelength is best, or whether the optimum technology combines the two.

While the fiber-optic probe won't eliminate the need for a biopsy, it will increase the likelihood that doctors will take a sample from the correct site. And because of improved optical technology, doctors may be able to make diagnoses right away, says Ramanujam.

Additionally, the probe can be made thin enough to fit through an even smaller needle than the standard 1/4-inch size, making an emotionally draining procedure less physically traumatic.

The group is patenting the technology via the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

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About: University of Wisconsin-Madison
In achievement and prestige, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has long been recognized as one of America’s great universities. A public, land-grant institution, UW-Madison offers a complete spectrum of liberal arts studies, professional programs and student activities. Many of its programs are hailed as world leaders in instruction, research and public service.

The university traces its roots to a clause in the Wisconsin Constitution, which decreed that the state should have a prominent public university. In 1848, Nelson Dewey, Wisconsin’s first governor, signed the act that formally created the university, and its first class, with 17 students, met in a Madison school building on February 5, 1849.

From those humble beginnings, the university has grown into a large, diverse community, with about 40,000 students enrolled each year. These students represent every state in the nation, as well as countries from around the globe, making for a truly international population.

UW-Madison is the oldest and largest campus in the University of Wisconsin System, a statewide network of 13 comprehensive universities, 13 freshman-sophomore transfer colleges and an extension service. One of two doctorate-granting universities in the system, UW-Madison’s specific mission is to provide "a learning environment in which faculty, staff and students can discover, examine critically, preserve and transmit the knowledge, wisdom and values that will help insure the survival of this and future generations and improve the quality of life for all."

The university achieves these ends through innovative programs of research, teaching and public service. Throughout its history, UW-Madison has sought to bring the power of learning into the daily lives of its students through innovations such as residential learning communities and service-learning opportunities. Students also participate freely in research, which has led to life-improving inventions from more fuel-efficient engines to cutting-edge genetic therapies.

Students, faculty and staff are motivated by a tradition known as the "Wisconsin Idea," described by UW President Charles Van Hise in 1904 as the compelling need to carry "the beneficent influence of the university ... to every home in the state." The Wisconsin Idea permeates the university’s work and helps forge close working relationships among university faculty and students and the state’s industries and government.

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