A gamma camera to search for cancer

2009 AIP Industrial Physics Forum : For the past six years, Michael O’Connor and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic have been investigating different molecular imaging techniques for screening for breast cancer, in the hope of finding a cheaper, equally reliable method to MRI.They’ve focused many of their efforts on scintigraphy , which images the body by catching gamma rays emitted from the patient (thanks to an injected radioactive tracer), rather than passing xrays through them.

The gamma camera itself contains crystals that respond to the gamma rays by emitting a little pop of light. Collectively they create an image.These crystals can be operated at room temperature, and they have no “dead space” so you can get very close to the breast tissue.In a clinical trial of dense breast tissue the gamma camera caught 10 tumors out of 12 while the mammogram only caught 3. Its resolution is comparable, but not better than MRI.However, the camera does have some drawbacks , reports AIP’s Calla Cofield . The radiation dose used is 6–7 times larger than a standard mammogram. Related Link 2009 AIP Industrial Physics Forum