One in twelve women in the UK will experience breast cancer during their life, one of the highest incidences in the world. Scientists at Cranfield University's Shrivenham Campus have been looking at ways in which new developments in materials science can assist us in the fight against such cancers.
Many women will have experienced mammography, the way breast cancer is currently screened. Radiologists view the mammograms for features which can be interpreted as premalignancy/malignancy before conducting biopsies for a final pathological diagnosis. As the incidence of breast cancer is so high a great number of women will experience this condition. It is critical that we diagnose this condition as early as possible so that their prognosis is good.
At Cranfield University's Department of Materials and Medical Sciences, we are using a new approach that will improve the quality of mammograms to allow for the earlier detection of premalignant features within the breast. This is done using a special type of X-ray known as synchrotron radiation. These are extremely intense and have a very narrow range of wavelengths which create much higher quality mammograms.
The improved fidelity of this new type of image offers the radiologist the prospect of earlier detection of malignancy and therefore earlier diagnosis; the key to improved prognosis. These synchrotron X-rays are currently produced at the UK's Research Councils' Central Laboratory at Daresbury Chereshire, where they are traditionally used to probe the atomic structure of matter by physicists and materials scientists.
At present the synchrotron source is huge, the size of a factory so it won't be available in your local hospital for some time. However, a synchrotron is not the only possible source for such X-rays and development work is underway to shrink the size of these sources to make them available for everyday use in larger hospitals.
This is not the only prospect synchrotron x-rays offer us in the diagnosis of breast cancer. X-ray diffraction of the atomic structures of solids forms the backbone of analytical techniques in solid state physics and materials science.
This is now being used by our team as a possible new technique for the early in-vivo diagnosis of breast cancer. "X-ray diffraction can characterise the atomic structure of a solid by analysing the X-rays which are characteristically 'scattered' by the regular arrays of atoms within it. We are using synchrotron X-rays to characterise the structure of tissue within breasts and breast tumours using diffraction effects" said Dr Keith Rogers of the Department of Materials and Medical Sciences.
"There are very large differences in the diffraction data from malignant and non-malignant tissues. In other words we have the prospect of a new and extremely sensitive in-vivo diagnostic technique." This new structural information is available from the X-rays which are normally discarded from conventional mammograms and can therefore be collected simultaneously with the new high fidelity mammograms. This offers the prospect of a dual-edged diagnostic tool, enhanced mammograms with a diffraction based diagnostic probe; a powerful new weapon in the fight against breast cancer.