Have You Heard?: Automated Breast Ultrasound Screening (ABUS)
It's well established that even the most advanced mammography available fails to render effective diagnoses in women with dense breast tissue. Nearly 1/3 of cancers go undetected in patients with dense breast tissue. Young and middle-aged women most often have dense breast tissue which appears cloudy on mammography imaging, and can often obscure the view of tumors in the breast tissue. Ultrasound has long been used to supplement mammography in an effort to improve detection of breast cancer. Yet, even when used in combination, many women still don't get the correct diagnosis. My case is a perfect, and all too common, example. I had a mammogram and ultrasound. According to the radiologist's report, I had "micro-calcifications, likely benign" and should "return in 6 months for follow-up." 6 months would've LITERALLY meant the difference between life and death for me. Luckily, my PA was smart and thorough. She sent me to a breast surgeon (Dr. Elizabeth Weinberg, who just happens to be the BEST breast surgeon in South Eastern North Carolina!) where my lump was immediately biopsied, and found to be malignant. My dense breast tissue likely obstructed the view of what we later found out was a 5.5cm Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (the size of a lime). Cancer had already started to spread to my lymph nodes. If we had waited 6 more months for follow-up, I would've been stage IV, metastatic instead of stage IIIa. As of now, there is no cure for metastatic breast cancer, and sadly, very little research is done to cure cancer at this stage.
While it is maddening that little is done to develop a cure, or even to track the medical experiences of women and men with stage IV breast cancer, it's good to know that some R&D teams are still making breakthroughs that have the potential to help millions of women, particularly those with dense breast tissue. Enter GE:
GE Healthcare has developed the ABUS: Automated Breast Ultrasound Screening, an ultrasound device that is the only FDA approved ultrasound for screening dense breast tissue. Check out the image captions for details.
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| Courtesy of GE Healthcare: On the left, an ultrasound image obtained with GE’s ABUS reveals an invasive malignancy (where the crosshairs meet). On the right, a standard mammographic image of the same breast shows dense tissue with non-specific calcifications. |
So, why isn't ABUS a standard part of the diagnostic protocol? The fight to include any ultrasound as an automatic part of diagnostic imaging for breast cancer has been a long one. Objections include cost and manpower. Many reports express fear that radiologists would be inundated with ultrasound patients because of the sheer number of women with dense breast tissue that are referred for diagnostic imaging each year. It should take a technician around 15 minutes per patient to obtain the ultrasound images, and then more time for the radiologist to read them. Given the amount of time that goes into the diagnostic process, the backlog at any given practice could become outrageous. Also, given the financial climate of our healthcare system, physicians are not in a position to afford the new equipment, or are forced to choose between a 3-D mammography (which is also being raved about for the quality of its imaging), and an ABUS when deciding on new imaging equipment for their practice.
Ultimately, advanced screening methods save lives. Early diagnosis leads to MUCH better outcomes for those facing a breast cancer diagnosis. In my opinion, young and middle-aged women with any indication that something is wrong should automatically have ultrasound included in their diagnostics, and it should be with a machine, like ABUS, that can improve detection of breast cancer in dense breast tissue.
Want to read more about ABUS? Check out: Elaine Schattner's article in Forbes, or go to GE Healthcare's website.
**all images on this post are property of GE Healthcare**
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