Carrying a tune is a talent that runs in Marcia Maring's family. "My whole family majored in music." Unfortunately that isn't the only trait passed down through the generations. "My aunt was 40 years old when she had breast cancer. Then my mother developed breast cancer."
A few years ago, a mammogram found Marcia also had breast cancer. Like 25-percent of women, she has dense breast tissue which makes it hard to detect tumors. Dr. Deborah Rhodes, Internal medicine, "In fact, in those women mammography can miss one out of every two cancers."
A team of doctors at the Mayo Clinic developed molecular breast imaging or MBI. Women get an injection of a radioactive tracer that travels to the tumor cells and lights them up. On the left is a mammogram. On the right the same scan using MBI.
Dr. Michael O'Connor, Prof. radiologic physics, "It's like seeing a lighthouse. You see this beacon in the breast and it's very easy to pick up the tumor." In a study of more than 900 women, molecular breast imaging picked up three-times as many cancerous tumors as a mammogram.
Dr. Carrie Hruska, research fellow, "We've shown we can detect even very small cancers those that are under 10 millimeters."
"In about 10 percent of the cases we would also find additional small tumors that the mammogram was missing." Which is exactly what happened to Marcia. In the study, the MBI found a second tumor the mammogram missed. It changed her course of treatment. "I was like wow, I didn't realize that the mammogram only had picked up the central tumor." After surgery and chemo Marcia's a healthy mom getting ready to send her kids off to college. "It's gonna be a new chapter in our lives."
Better detection that helped this victim become a survivor.
Doctors say the new procedure is also more comfortable than a mammogram because it uses less pressure. Researchers hope to make it available to the public within the next few years.
