Researchers from the University of Cincinnati in Ohio have borrowed technology from the U.S. Army to distinguish abnormal tissues and diagnose disease states, including breast cancer. With the aid of a microchip found in the Javelin portable antitank missile, the new infrared spectroscopy technique can image sample lesions as small as one square millimeter -- and provide each lesion's chemical fingerprint too.
"We believe this technique will help make it possible to identify spectroscopic/chemical markers for breast cancer, possibly before morphological changes can be detected," said Gloria Story, an infrared spectroscopist with Procter & Gamble’s women’s health division in Cincinnati.
Story and her colleagues from the university reported on their laboratory work at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in Texas earlier this month. The other researchers were Dr. Rawia Yassin, assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and Dr. Elyse Lower, a hematologist, oncologist, and professor of internal medicine.
In recent years, the military’s use of infrared-array detectors has become declassified information, paving the way for public health groups to study and work with the technology, Story said. In this case, the infrared focal-plane array detector was coupled with a Fourier transform infrared microscope.
Story explained that the combination array and microscope can image a square millimeter of tissue. Each image contains a cube of data, while each pixel in the image has an infrared spectrum associated with it.
The information contained in the cube can be displayed in two ways: The analyst can display the infrared spectrum of any pixel in the image, or display an entire image at a particular infrared wavelength.
As a result, there can be up to 65,536 pixels in one infrared image, with each pixel having an infrared spectrum of 255 wavelengths, Story said.
"The device has recently proven to be a powerful tool for obtaining spectroscopic images with unprecedented image fidelity. The images could complement assays such as HER-2/neu, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and hormonal receptor status," she said.
The latest research has revealed a potential link between VEGF and breast cancer. Japanese investigators from Tokyo Metropolitan Komagome Hospital have suggested that microvessel density (MVD) could predict a woman’s response to breast cancer treatment. The expression of VEGF was found to be closely associated with MVD, and with the effects of chemotherapy and other adjuvant treatment, they said (Breast Cancer, October 30, 2000, Vol.7:4, pp.311-314).
Meanwhile, oncologists at Uppsala University in Sweden are investigating whether axillary dissection for the routine staging of breast cancer can be avoided by molecular biological diagnosis. By analyzing the primary cancer site for molecular markers, such as VEGF, biological staging could be achieved instead (Acta Oncologica, 2000, Vol.39:3, pp.319-326).
By Edward SusmanAuntMinnie.com contributing writer
December 19, 2000
Related Reading
Pathology pinpoints particulars of breast cancer for better management, October 6, 2000
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