IC402: Dedicated Breast CT: Technology, Dosimetry, and Image Quality (John M. Boone, PhD); Dedicated Breast CT: Clinical Experience (Karen Lindfors, MD)

The 2008 ARRS Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, on April 13-18, will feature an instructional course called on dedicated breast CT (IC402). In the first part of this course, John Boone, PhD, who is professor and vice chair (research) of radiology and professor of biomedical engineering at the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, CA, will be lecturing on “Dedicated Breast CT: Technology, Dosimetry, and Image Quality.”

According to Dr. Boone, the course will be a discussion of the recent research of his group involving the development of a pair of breast CT scanners that have been used to image 140 patients. The goal of their project is to evaluate the potential of breast CT for breast cancer screening and diagnosis.

“Mammography has been shown to be effective in reducing breast cancer mortality. We are studying the potential of breast CT to evaluate whether or not this new modality can improve breast cancer screening accuracy over that of mammography. Even if breast CT proves to be equivalent to mammography, the breast CT platform will likely provide an ideal setting for the development of other breast cancer related procedures, including diagnostic imaging, contrast-enhanced breast CT, breast biopsy, and breast cancer treatments such as radiofrequency ablation,” said Dr. Boone.

A highlight of the course is the breast CT scanner itself. Dr. Boone’s group was the first to image a live women using cone-beam breast CT in November of 2004. They have also performed contrast-enhanced breast CT and are pursuing other novel technologies that may have a long-term bearing on breast cancer screening and diagnosis.

The course is designed so that the audience will gain an understanding of how breast CT works. In addition, attendees will learn the technical potential of this emerging technology as a breast imaging tool that will likely find a niche in the breast imaging center.

In addition to Dr. Boone’s presentation, his colleague Karen Lindfors, MD, who is a professor of radiology and chief of breast imaging at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, will present her lecture, “Dedicated Breast CT: Clinical Experience,” an analysis of the breast CT images of 140 BIRADS 4 and 5 women who were imaged prior to their biopsies.

This part of the course will discuss the initial clinical studies using dedicated breast CT, a new innovative modality, and compare it to screening mammography. It will also compare contrast enhanced breast CT to unenhanced breast CT, mammography, and MRI. Potential other applications of breast CT will also be discussed.

“Dedicated breast CT is a new modality and is likely to be used in the future as a platform for diagnostic breast imaging, biopsy and percutaneous ablation guidance, PET/CT (molecular imaging) of the breast, and possibly even screening for breast cancer. The audience will learn about the current status of this technique and possible future applications, said Dr. Lindfors.

IC402 takes place on Thursday, April 17, at 8:00 am. For more information about the 2008 ARRS Annual Meeting, visit www.arrs.org/meetings/ano8/.

For more information on the women's imaging instructional courses, visit WIO's ARRS 2008 Annual Meeting Instructional Course Section.