EU-funded researchers develop personalized breast cancer screening programs

European Union-funded researchers have developed new tools for personalized screening programs to improve detection and prognosis of breast cancer, several of which are ready for use, the European Commission said in a press release Wednesday.

In the EU, one in eight women is diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. Screening programs have cut mortality rates, and early detection means less invasive treatment, but much remains to be done, said the statement.

"Unfortunately, not all cancers are detected in screening," said Nico Karssemeijer, coordinator of the EU-funded Assure project.

The project set out to help personalize breast cancer screening, based on risk and breast density. They have succeeded in building imaging tools to supplement mammography, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound, as well as computer models to assess risk and design personalized screening programs.

"We are working with two clinical centers where, if the breast density exceeds a certain threshold, we offer supplemental screening with whole-breast ultrasound," explained Karssemeijer, "We use special screening software, built by one of the SMEs in the project, to quickly screen the whole breast volumetrically."

As whole-breast ultrasound scans generate a lot of data, and images must be compared with the previous screening session, "we are also developing tools to help the radiologist do this more efficiently and with a higher quality," said Karssemeije, "meaning less risk that they miss certain aspects of the images."

"We are currently testing the system using databases of existing cases," he continued, "we ask the radiologists to read these cases twice -- once without the tools and once with -- so we can determine improvements."

The project is applying these databases to developing cost-effective personalized screening programs. Breast density is one of the most important elements in calculating individual risk of breast cancer, but due to a lack of objective measures it is not used in current risk models.

"There's already a lot of interest in the breast density measurement tools, now being extended to look at tissue texture," said Karssemeijer, "These products are going to be essential for introducing personalized screening."

"The software that we have developed could already be used next year," says team member Bram Platel, "The breast density measurements are already approved products, so they can be used right away, and we are working on completing the computer-aided detection tools for ultrasound and MRI." Endit