Breast cancer may be diagnosed without biopsies

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By David Liu davidl at foodconsumer dot org

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University found that a new imaging agent may be used for PET scans to replace biopsies in identifying breast cancer.

The study published in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine shows that use of a substance called 64 Cu-TP3805 in PET scans were able to identify biomarkers specifically associated with malignant breast cancer.

Biopsies are indispensible in confirming a case of breast cancer.  However, the method can cause harm to healthy breast tissue in cases of benign tumors and increase risk of spreading of the malignancy in cases of breast cancer.

For the study, Mathew Thakur and colleagues used PET imaging to evaluate tumors or breast cancer by finding a biomarker called VPAC1 in mice that develop breast tumors spontaneously.  VPAC1 is over-expressed only in malignant tumors.

The researchers compared the images obtained in the same mice through three methods, PET scan using the gold standard imaging agent, 18F-FDG; CT scan and PET scan using 64Cu-TP3805.

They found a total of 10 tumors.  Eight were malignant and the standard PET scan located four while the PET scan using 64Cu-TP3805 identified all eight tumors which were malignant histologically. 

The remaining two tumors were benign and did not over-express VPAC1 oncogene, thus were not found with the EPT imaging with 64Cu-TP3805.

"If this ability of 64Cu-TP3805 holds up in humans, then in the future, PET scans with 64Cu-TP3805 will significantly contribute to the management of breast cancer," Dr. Thakur said.