Transillumination lightscanning to diagnose breast cancer: a feasibility study

Lightscanning is a new technique for breast diagnosis. The breast is illuminated with low-intensity light, and the transmission pattern of relatively narrow bands of red and infrared light is detected, amplified, reconstructed, and displayed in visual wavelengths. With a prototype scanner, 1200 patients referred for xeromammography were examined. All patients had both a lightscan and a xeromammogram obtained on the same day, and the examinations were interpreted blindly and in combination. Thirty-three patients had biopsy-proven cancer. The sensitivity and specificity of the nonblind lightscan and the xeromammogram were comparable. The sensitivity of the blind lightscan was poorer than the other two examinations for tumors smaller than 10 mm and for nonpalpable tumors. The technique of lightscanning is discussed and recommendations for further evaluation are made.