To celebrate International Women’s Day 2011, today we’re looking back at last December’s TEDxAmsterdamWomen with a series of articles and videos.
Dr. Deborah Rhodes – a physician and cancer researcher speaks about her inspirational journey to improve breast cancer diagnostics.
Talking us through her path from her the shocking finding about the limitations, politics and financing behind mammography, to her mission to find a better fitting solution that will result better diagnostics.
After a friend told her about a new gamma imaging technology that was discovered in Israel, the two had the idea of using a new technical solution for breast scanning. They soon created a duct-tape prototype of a molecular breast imaging (MBI) and started searching for research grants. After a long search the MBI device finally got a grant through the Susan G komen foundation and the comparison test was launched for 1000 dense breasted women – mammography success rates were only 25%… MBI’s 83%…
The main differentiator of an MBI device is that it can identify the difference between a normal cell and a tumor cell by its molecular behavior rather then just by appearance (as in mammography), MBI also offers lighter pain compression (mammography apparently demands by LAW to create the painful compression that is applied). Another clear advantage is that MBI diagnostics requires the generation of 4 images per breast, mammography more the 1000 images (which means years of training to read the same statistic and more time in doing ).
Four medical journals rejected the manuscript of the study – (somebody said politics?) finally the journal ‘Radiology’ agreed to publish it – and gave hope to the development of this improved diagnostic.
Dr. Rhodes emphasizes there are still 5-10 years of development and improvement of the method – but she made a point of not earning anything from the MBI development – so she can keep telling us the truth. It is time to accept the limitation of mammography – and offer a better patient-fit diagnostics. It literally saves lives..
Facebook
Twitter
Youtube
Flickr