US-guided diffused optical tomography: a promising functional imaging technique in breast lesions

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Biophysics
• Oncology

Background:

• Differentiating malignant from benign breast lesions is crucial for timely cancer diagnosis and treatment.
• Current diagnostic methods can be invasive or lack definitive accuracy.
• There is a need for noninvasive functional imaging techniques to improve breast lesion characterization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the feasibility and clinical effectiveness of ultrasound (US)-guided diffused optical tomography (DOT).
• To determine DOT's ability to differentiate malignant breast lesions from benign ones.
• To evaluate total hemoglobin concentration (THC) as a biomarker for breast cancer detection.

Main Methods:

• A study involving 198 women with 214 breast lesions scheduled for open biopsy.
• Conventional ultrasound (US) was used for lesion localization.
• Diffused optical tomography (DOT) measured total hemoglobin concentration (THC) in each lesion.
• Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were calculated using surgical pathology as the gold standard.

Main Results:

• Malignant lesions (n=118) exhibited significantly higher average THC (222.2 +/- 87.2 micromol/L) compared to benign lesions (n=96) (125.5 +/- 83.4 micromol/L) (p < 0.05).
• Using a THC cutoff of 140 micromol/L, DOT achieved 83.9% sensitivity, 66.7% specificity, and 76.2% overall accuracy.
• The study confirmed significantly elevated THC in malignant breast lesions.

Conclusions:

• Ultrasound-guided diffused optical tomography (DOT) is a noninvasive functional imaging technique with potential for breast cancer diagnosis.
• DOT's ability to measure total hemoglobin concentration (THC) aids in differentiating malignant from benign breast lesions.
• This technique offers a promising adjunct to existing methods for breast lesion characterization.