Advanced imaging techniques improve the diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer

2020.12.08 | Graduate School of Health

Friday 11 December at 14:00, Thomas Winther Buus defends his PhD dissertation entitled "Whole-Body MRI and Spectral CT in Metastatic Breast Cancer".

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among Danish women. While breast cancer confined to the breast has a good prognosis, metastatic breast cancer (MBC) is seldom curable. The bones and axillary lymph nodes are the most common sites for metastases. However, it is difficult to detect bone metastases with standard imaging techniques and lymph node metastases often require surgery to diagnose.

In the present PhD project, we compared the diagnostic performance of whole-body MRI (WB-MRI) and spectral CT with conventional CT for diagnosing MBC and investigated new quantitative imaging techniques for detecting lymph node metastases. Finally, we applied prototype software to reduce the scan time of WB-MRI. We found that WB-MRI and spectral CT increased the diagnostic performance compared to conventional CT for diagnosing MBC. Quantitative spectral CT measurements showed comparable sensitivity to ultrasound-guided biopsy for detecting lymph node metastases. Finally, the scan time of WB-MRI could be significantly reduced without sacrificing image quality. WB-MRI and spectral CT improves the diagnosis of MBC. Scan time reduction of WB-MRI has made it feasible to implement into rountine diagnostic work-up of women suspected of MBC.

The summary is written by the PhD student.    

The defence is public and will be held in Auditorium C114-101, Entrance C, Aarhus University Hospital, Palle Juul-Jensens Boulevard 99, 8200 Aarhus N and online via Zoom. Please read the attached press release for more information.

Contact:

PhD student Thomas Winther Buus

Mail: thomas.winther.buus@auh.rm.dk

Phone: (+45) 28898191

Read full press release