When doctors are managing care for women with breast cancer, the information available to them profoundly influences the type of care they recommend. Knowing whether a woman’s cancer has metastasized, for instance, directly affects how her doctors will approach treatment - which may in turn influence the outcome of that treatment.

Determining whether a tumor has metastasized is not always straightforward, however. Radiologists often start by using diagnostic ultrasound to non-invasively probe the nearby lymph nodes - tissues where cancer cells first migrate once they metastasize. But in the early stages of cancer, lymph nodes often appear completely normal even if the cancer has metastasized.

Now a team of researchers at the University of Chicago has designed a computer program that uses artificial intelligence to analyze the features of ultrasound images in order to help doctors predict earlier whether a woman’s cancer has metastasized. The team will discuss the first preclinical results obtained using this program at the upcoming meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), which takes place from July 26 - 30, 2009 in Anaheim, California.

Currently there are no automated methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration for diagnosing cancer, but on Wednesday the team will report the results of a preliminary pilot study that retrospectively reanalyzed the diagnostic ultrasounds of 50 women with suspected breast cancer who all had lymph nodes that appeared normal in the ultrasound - suggesting that their cancers had not metastasized.

All 50 women later underwent surgery to remove their cancers and axillary lymph nodes, and tissue biopsies of the lymph nodes revealed that 20 of them had metastatic cancer and 30 of them had cancer that remained localized at the time of surgery.

The pilot study aimed to determine if the computer would have accurately identified the 20 metastatic cases based on analyzing the ultrasound images of the tumors.

The program performed promisingly well, says medical physicist Karen Drukker, a research associate and assistant professor in the department of radiology at the University of Chicago, who will be presenting results in Anaheim that demonstrate the program’s potential for diagnosing metastatic disease.

“We discovered that a computer analysis of breast ultrasound could potentially predict with promising accuracy which patients had metastasis and which did not,” says Drukker.

Next they plan to start an observer study in which several radiologists will use the computer program to see if it enhances their ability to diagnose metastasis - again, based on retrospective cases for which the answer can later be revealed.

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The talk, “Quantitative Image Analysis for Prognosis in Newly Diagnosed Breast Cancer Patients with Sonographically Normal Appearing Lymph Nodes” is at 1:54 p.m. on Wednesday, July 29 in Room 304A.

PRESS REGISTRATION
Journalists are welcome to attend the conference free of charge. AAPM will grant complimentary registration to any full-time or freelance journalist working on assignment. The Press guidelines are posted at: http://www.aapm.org/meetings/09AM/VirtualPressRoom/

Questions about the meeting or requests for interviews, images, or background information should be directed to Jason Bardi (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), 858-775-4080).

ABOUT MEDICAL PHYSICISTS
If you ever had a mammogram, ultrasound, X-ray, MRI, PET scan, or known someone treated for cancer, chances are reasonable that a medical physicist was working behind the scenes to make sure the imaging procedure was as effective as possible. Medical physicists help to develop new imaging techniques, improve existing ones, and assure the safety of radiation used in medical procedures in radiology, radiation oncology and nuclear medicine. They collaborate with radiation oncologists to design cancer treatment plans. They provide routine quality assurance and quality control on radiation equipment and procedures to ensure that cancer patients receive the prescribed dose of radiation to the correct location. They also contribute to the development of physics intensive therapeutic techniques, such as the stereotactic radiosurgery and prostate seed implants for cancer to name a few. The annual AAPM meeting is a great resource, providing guidance to physicists to implement the latest and greatest technology in a community hospital close to you.

ABOUT AAPM
The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) is a scientific, educational, and professional organization of more than 6,000 medical physicists. Headquarters are located at the American Center for Physics in College Park, MD. Publications include a scientific journal (“Medical Physics”), technical reports, and symposium proceedings.

Contact: Jason Bardi
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
301-209-3091
American Institute of Physics