Seno Medical Instruments today released results from a study of its Imagio opto-acoustc imaging system intended to diagnose breast cancer, touting that both morphologic and functional OA/US features serve as a non-invasive approach to helping distinguish breast cancer molecular subtypes.
Results from the study were presented late last month at the Radiological Society of North America’s 2018 annual meeting in Chicago, the San Antonio-based company said.
In the study, investigators explored the potential role of functional OA/US imaging-derived hemoglobin de-oxygenation and angiogenesis feature scoring alongside conventional gray-scale ultrasound in non-invasively diagnosing one of four breast cancer subtypes. A total of 2,105 women with suspicious breast masses underwent pre-biopsy OA/US imaging using the Imagio system at 16 clinical sites, the company said.
Study authors concluded that data from subtype analyses performed in the trial could potentially facilitate clinical management decisions, and that both morphologic and functional OA/US features could provide a non-invasive approach to determining subtypes.
“It has been known for some time that breast cancers with differing receptor expression and gene amplification profiles have different risk factors for disease progression, as well as different preferential organ sites of metastases and therapeutic response. Nevertheless, large-scale gene expression profiling from biopsy samples is not currently feasible. We previously hypothesized that more aggressive molecular subtypes might be detectable based on their OA/US feature scores. The results of intense comparison of our histological and OA/US imaging demonstrate and underscore the potential value of OA/US as a novel and non-invasive tool for gleaning critical information that may help to guide and optimize treatment for women with breast cancer. The importance of these data is underscored by their inclusion in the High Impact Clinical Trial category, and we are pleased that RSNA selected our OA/US technology for this honor for the second year in a row,” chief medical officer Dr. Thomas Stavros said in a prepared statement.
“The exciting finding in this study is OA/US imaging features may serve as imaging biomarkers that predict molecular phenotypes. This not only helps establish the diagnosis of breast cancer, but also distinguishes cancers with poor prognosis from those with good prognosis non-invasively – using no radiation, contrast or a need for biopsy. This is an important step forward to non-invasively optimize treatment regimens in keeping with the unique molecular profile of each woman’s cancer. Furthermore, it is a great opportunity to assess the cancer three dimensionally instead of making treatment decisions based on small biopsy samples. OA/US has the potential to improve treatment outcomes for women with invasive breast cancer,” study author Dr. Basak Dogan of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center said in a press release.
