Pinpointing Breast Cancer

Surgery is the single most effective treatment for breast cancer diagnosed at an early stage, before it has spread through the body. If the tumour is small enough, patients will be offered a ‘lumpectomy’ (breast conserving surgery) rather than removing the whole breast. In order to cut out the tumour and a safe margin of healthy tissue around it, which may be harbouring rogue cancer cells, it’s essential that the surgeon knows exactly where it is within the breast. This is usually done through an MRI scan, with the patient lying face down inside the scanner. However, surgery obviously has to be done with the patient lying face up. Researchers are using computer algorithms to analyse and compare MRI scans taken in the face down (top row) or face up position (bottom row), enabling surgeons to predict the location of a tumour more accurately and ensure they’ve removed it all.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

Writer

Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image from work by Chuan-Bing Wang, Sangwook Lee, Namkug Kim and BeomSeok Ko, and colleagues
• University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Scientific Reports, March 2020