Screening for breast cancer without X-rays: Lasers and sound merge in promising diagnostic technique

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In the first phase of clinical testing of a new imaging device, researchers in the Netherlands used photoacoustics rather than ionizing radiation to detect and visualize breast tumors. The team's preliminary results, which were conducted on 12 patients with diagnosed malignancies, have just been published. Photoacoustics, a hybrid optical and acoustical imaging technique, builds on the established technology of using red and infrared light to image tissue and detect tumors. This technology, called optical mammography, reveals malignancies because blood hemoglobin readily absorbs the longer, redder wavelengths of light, which reveals a clear contrast between blood-vessel dense tumor areas and normal vessel environments. However, it is difficult to target the specific area to be imaged with this approach. source: ScienceDaily