PATIENT-SPECIFIC NARROW BEAM BREAST CT

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Project Summary/Abstract Early and reliable detection of breast cancer remains a challenge, particularly in women with dense and extremely dense breasts. Breast density is associated with reduced sensitivity and specificity of cancer detection in established screening technologies – mammography and tomosynthesis. Dedicated breast CT is a promising solution to this problem as it provides fully tomographic imaging of the breast without compression and superior mass lesion detection. It has not yet been widely adopted, however, in large part due to three key limitations. Currently available architectures of dedicated breast CT suffer from limited visibility of microcalcifications, high radiation dose levels, and suboptimal coverage of the posterior breast anatomy. Our novel design for breast CT is a proprietary technology that effectively overcomes these limitations. We accomplish this by utilizing narrow-beam image acquisition strategy and allowing the anatomy of the breast to dictate specific imaging parameters. Critical to our design are the significant reduction in radiation dose to breast and achievement of near scatter-free image acquisition, thereby increasing the visibility of microcalcifications. The unique architecture of our design facilitates improved coverage of the chest wall anatomy and the potential for simultaneous bilateral imaging of both breasts without the need for patient repositioning. We have conducted a series of preliminary simulation studies to evaluate these gains and have reported the results in publications. In this Phase 1 project, we seek to complete a physical prototype of our design to replicate the simulation results. Our final product on completion of Phase 2 will be a novel dedicated breast CT technology that can be used for screening and diagnostic applications. This product will serve as a platform for subsequent technology plug-ins such as integrated biopsy, computer aided detection and computer aided diagnosis.