• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

MassDevice

The Medical Device Business Journal — Medical Device News & Articles | MassDevice

  • Latest News
    • Cardiovascular
    • Orthopedics
  • Wall Street Beat
    • Funding Roundup
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Podcasts & Webinars
    • Podcasts
    • Webinars
  • Resources
    • About MassDevice
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Leadership in Medtech
    • Manufacturers & Suppliers Search
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Videos
    • Whitepapers
  • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
  • Coronavirus: Live updates
Home » Mayo Clinic doc’s quest for better breast cancer detection draws attention

Mayo Clinic doc’s quest for better breast cancer detection draws attention

January 14, 2011 By MedCity News

Keywords:

TEDWomen logo

A Mayo Clinic internist’s talk at the high-profile TEDWomen conference in Washington, D.C., outlined the stunning limitations of mammography for 30 to 60 percent of women (depending on age) and added fuel to her 10-year quest to offer a new, alternative screening technology.

Dr. Deborah Rhodes spoke in early December at TEDWomen, one of a series of events that highlights innovative thinkers and “ideas worth spreading.” Other cutting-edge leaders included Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Ugandan farmer Annet Namayanja, who’s created a new kind of protein-rich bean.

Since the speech was posted online late last week, it has become one of TEDWomen’s “most emailed” and has caused a deluge of interview requests, said a Mayo spokesperson.

MedCity News logo

In her talk, Rhodes zeroed in on the center of recent controversy and confusion over mammogram guidelines: breast density.

  • Breast tissue density is a higher risk for breast cancer than having a mother or sister with the disease, but 95 percent of women don’t know this, or how dense their breast tissue is.
  • Mammography has only a 40 percent chance of detecting early stage tumors, like dense tissue, are white on a mammogram image.
  • Molecular Breast Imaging (MBI) technology, currently licensed to California’s Gamma Medica, catches three times as many tumors in breasts with dense tissue, using significantly lower levels of radiation than currently offered by other gamma screening cameras. It also costs about $500, compared to more than $1,100 for an MRI.

“It is time for us to accept both the extraordinary successes of mammography and the limitations,” Rhodes said, issuing a challenge to the interests that would protect the status quo. “We need to individualize screening based on density.”

An Unanswerable Question

Ten years ago breast density was little understood, but Rhodes learned enough to realize she could not offer an at-risk patient a definitive early diagnosis with a mammogram. She then teamed up with Michael O’Connor, a professor of radiologic physics at Mayo Clinic. His team designed a type of scanner using a gamma camera, which produces images from a gamma radiation-emitting radioisotope that is injected. Gamma camera technology had just been made small enough to fit onto a mammography plate, which was what the team used for its first prototype.

When injected, the radioisotope concentrates in active clusters of cells, or tumors, which show up as black dots on the image. Mayo quickly got great results testing the technology, catching more and much smaller tumors than mammograms. In 2004, the Susan G. Komen Foundation funded a study of 1,000 women with dense breasts comparing a screening mammogram to MBI. Of the tumors found, MBI caught 83 percent, while mammogram caught only 25 percent.

The Competition

In 2004, while the Mayo team was conducting its study, Dilon Diagnostics, based in Newport News, Virginia, began selling its own gamma screening units. The clarity of gamma scans makes it easier to plan surgery or see if chemotherapy administered before surgery is shrinking a tumor. The technology has its own name — breast-specific gamma imaging, or BSGI. Nancy Morter, director of marketing and communications, said Dilon has installations in about 150 clinics in the U.S. as well as several other countries.

The Downside

Radiation levels are the key concern for MBI, BSGI, and related therapies. Because the radioisotope is injected, all organs are exposed instead of just the breasts. Radiation levels in scans are the subject of ongoing controversy, because nobody really knows for sure the true risk they pose. “If you don’t have dense breasts or other risk factors, then you don’t want the radiation exposure — you don’t need this,” Morter said.

Getting that dose as low as possible is the goal for Rhodes and her team, and MBI is currently one-fifth the level of other gamma technologies, or “comparable to a mammogram,” states the Gamma Medica site. The Mayo team will be publishing studies that attempt to weigh MBI’s potential against its risks as a regular annual screening tool for women with dense breast tissue.

The Market

A 2009 Elsevier Business Intelligence report valued the U.S. market for breast cancer detection and diagnostic technologies at approximately $2.18 billion in 2008, estimated to climb to $2.84 billion by 2013. But all gamma imaging technologies, at the time of the report, were considered too new and experimental to be included. Gamma Medica did not return a call for comment, but Morter of Dilon Diagnostics said there are about 9,000 U.S. Mammography Quality Standard Act-certified centers, plus independent imaging centers, and about 10,000 abroad as well. “Asian markets really like this (BSGI) device, as well as other countries with socialized medicine,” Morter said. “It is very affordable and easily accessed.” BSGI systems cost about $300,000 each for just the capital equipment.

The Future

Gamma Medica has been selling its Lumagem molecular breast imaging system with Mayo technology since 2009, but no sales figures are known; in her talk Rhodes said it was “still not widely available.” (Rhodes does not profit financially from the technology.) Given that replication of its studies will take years, and that the medical industry as a whole is slow to change, it’s anybody’s guess whether MBI or some other “disruptive” technology — or technologies — will improve early breast cancer screening.

Until MBI or other alternatives such as a new test that will better quantify density are more widely employed, both Rhodes and Morter say, it’s up to women to ask about their breast density classification when they get screened.

Filed Under: News Well, Women's Health Tagged With: Breast Cancer

In case you missed it

  • Abbott imaging catheter recall flagged as Class I by FDA
  • Will Johnson & Johnson buy Boston Scientific?
  • Needham & Co. downgrades Medtronic, Zimmer Biomet shares
  • DoMore Diagnostics wins CE mark for AI algorithm that predicts colorectal cancer outcomes
  • Quidel, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics combine to form in vitro diagnostics company
  • Zimmer Biomet adds ESG and CEO visibility to executive’s duties
  • U of Maryland scientist to set up NIH’s new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health
  • ‘Catastrophic explosion’ and resin shortage led Medtronic’s supply chain problems
  • FDA grants IDE for MedAlliance’s sirolimus-eluting balloon
  • Medtronic ‘hopeful’ on FDA clearance for next-gen diabetes tech in FY 2023
  • Bigfoot Biomedical adds former Insulet VP as chief commercial officer
  • Medtronic, DaVita to form new kidney care company
  • Medtronic stock down on Q4 earnings miss
  • 3M Health Care Business president is leaving this year
  • Device developer SeaStar Medical hires chief medical officer
  • AccuPulse raises $10M Series A
  • Exactech announces first U.S. surgeries with its nex-gen laser cage glenoid

RSS From Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Download COMSOL News Special Edition Biomedical
    Get instant access to this special edition of COMSOL News where you will read user stories that showcases how simulation enables engineers, researchers, and scientists explore and analyze biomedical designs. Download Now.       The post Download COMSOL News Special Edition Biomedical appeared first on Medical Design and Outsourcing.
  • Qosina adds new tube-to-tube barb connectors
    Qosina has added 25 new tube-to-tube barb connectors to its portfolio, the OEM single-use component supplier for the medical and pharmaceutical industries said this week. Ronkonkoma, New York-based Qosina said its inventory of tube-to-tube barb connectors is available in more than 500 configurations. The connectors can fit inner tube diameters between 1/32 in and 1… […]
  • Abbott imaging catheter recall flagged as Class I by FDA
    The FDA has identified the Abbott (NYSE:ABT) recall of its Dragonfly OpStar Imaging Catheter as a Class I recall. That’s the most serious level of a medical device recall, carrying the risk of serious injury or death. Five incidents, one injury and zero deaths were reported when Abbott initiated the recall on April 11. The… […]
  • Zimmer Biomet adds ESG and CEO visibility to executive’s duties
    Zimmer Biomet (NYSE:ZBH) today announced additional responsibilities for Investor Relations SVP and Chief Communications Officer Keri Mattox. Mattox’s new title at the Warsaw, Indiana-based orthopedics company is chief communications and administration officer. She will be responsible for “building and executing a comprehensive strategy around Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives and increasing CEO visibility, engagement… […]
  • ‘Catastrophic explosion’ and resin shortage led Medtronic’s supply chain problems
    Medtronic CEO Geoff Martha today said a “catastrophic explosion” in Medtronic’s supply chain for packaging and a shortage of resins were the biggest issues hurting the company’s fourth-quarter performance. Fridley, Minnesota-based Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) reported about $350 million less in sales than analysts were expecting for the quarter, which ended April 29. Martha said about 75%… […]
  • 3M Health Care Business president is leaving this year
    3M Health Care Business Group President Mojdeh Poul will retire from the company on July 1, 2022. Poul joined Maplewood, Minnesota-based 3M (NYSE:MMM) in 2011 as the global business VP of critical and chronic care solutions. She later became VP and general manager of the company’s food safety business and president of numerous 3M divisions,… […]
  • Iterative Scopes announces positive data in Skout AI colonoscopy algorithm clinical trial
    Iterative Scopes this week announced positive trial data in a study of its colorectal cancer screening algorithm, Skout. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Iterative Scopes designed Skout as a computer-aided device (CADe) that uses artificial intelligence and computer vision technology to detect suspicious tissue and provide real-time feedback for gastroenterologists performing the procedure. Get the full story on… […]
  • Device developer SeaStar Medical hires chief medical officer
    SeaStar Medical has hired Dr. Kevin Chung as chief medical officer of the medtech developer starting July 1. Denver-based SeaStar is developing a platform therapy focused on hyperinflammation of vital organs. The company’s Selective Cytopheretic Device was designated as a breakthrough device by the FDA earlier this year. SeaStar is set to go public in… […]
  • Varta presents microbattery product portfolio at Computex 2022
    Varta will present its broad product portfolio of microbatteries, which make a wide range of future-proof applications possible, at Computex in Taipei starting today. Varta’s microbattery product portfolio ranges from rechargeable lithium-ion button cells to nickel metal hydride button cells, primary silver oxide cells, primary lithium button cells and cylindrical lithium batteries to hydrogen gas… […]
  • Entegris opens Life Sciences Technology Center in Massachusetts
    Entegris (Nasdaq:ENTG) announced today that it opened a new Life Sciences Technology Center in Billerica, Massachusetts. The new Life Sciences Technology Center was built to offer life sciences customers the opportunity to leverage Entegris’ cold-chain supply expertise to optimize processes, reduce costs and increase speed to market. Get the full story at our sister site,… […]
  • MedAcuity hires SVP of business development
    Medtech software development firm MedAcuity today said it has hired Simon Johnson as SVP of business development. Westford, Massachusetts-based MedAcuity said Johnson previously built the client partner team and managed strategic clients at digital consultancy Mobiquity. He also served as SVP of client services at GreenPages Technologies, responsible for driving services revenue growth leading to… […]

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

DeviceTalks Weekly

May 27, 2022
Quick message - No DTW podcast, but plenty else to listen to over this weekend and next week.
See More >

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
Need Medtech news in a minute?
We Deliver!

MassDevice Enewsletters get you caught up on all the mission critical news you need in med tech. Sign up today.

MDO ad

Footer

MASSDEVICE MEDICAL NETWORK

DeviceTalks
Drug Delivery Business News
Medical Design & Outsourcing
Medical Tubing + Extrusion
Drug Discovery & Development
Pharmaceutical Processing World
MedTech 100 Index
R&D World

Device Talks Webinars, Podcasts, & Discussions

Attend our Monthly Webinars
Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
Join our Device Talks Tuesdays Discussion

MASSDEVICE

Subscribe to MassDevice E-Newsletter
Advertise with us
About
Contact us
Add us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Connect with us on LinkedIn Follow us on YouTube

Copyright © 2022 · WTWH Media LLC and its licensors. All rights reserved.
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media.

Advertise | Privacy Policy | RSS