Researchers at the U and BYU made improvements to an MRI technique using sodium instead of water that may lead to fewer false positive breast cancer screenings.
Although sodium MRIs are not new, they are time consuming. Researchers that worked on this project have been able to make the process clinically accessible by creating a device that will produce images in just 20 minutes.
“It takes so long that no one uses it,” said Rock Hadley, professor of the radiology research department at the U and one of the researchers on the project.
Sodium MRIs are able to detect and distinguish tumors better than typical MRIs that use water to locate them. Hadley said the ideal process would be to use a water MRI and then to use a sodium MRI in order to determine whether the tumor is benign or malignant. The two MRI techniques cannot be used at the same time because the image result is foggy.
If a tumor is located from the initial water MRI, than the sodium MRI would take place to determine whether or not the tumor is dangerous. The sodium MRI measures the levels of sodium in the tumor, with more sodium meaning it is cancerous and will need some sort or treatment and possibly might need to be removed.
The ability to distinguish between benign and malignant tumors could make the clinical accessibility to sodium MRIs even more important because the device will also help to decrease the amount of false positive diagnoses. Many women every year are diagnosed with a false positive and in the worst cases can have an unnecessary biopsy when in fact the tumor is actually benign. This device will help reduce the amount of false positives every year by distinguishing between the benign and malignant tumors.
“Fewer breasts would have to be removed [due to decreasing the number of false positives],” said Josh Kaggie, graduate research assistant at the U and another researcher on the project.
Once the tumor has been located and determined to be either malignant or benign, proper treatment can be administered. This device could also give doctors the ability to monitor the treatment and physical therapy process more easily because of the shorter amount of time between the administration of the MRI and the printing of the image.
The device could have impacts spanning further than just breast cancer screenings. Hadley said the device has also shown use for knee imaging to determine the condition the cartilage is in.
The results from this research were published in the September issue of the journal Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. The senior author on the paper was BYU electrical engineer Neal Bangerter. The device is only in the test stage and those associated with the project hope to begin testing on patients soon. It is still unknown when it will available for use in the field but because of the possible implications researchers are hopeful everything will go well with testing.