New Technique Detects Early Cervical Cancer
21 October 2008 - The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden Hospital have developed a new imaging technique which locates previously undetectable early stage cervical cancers, according to research published in Radiology today.
The pilot study found the new imaging technology identified small tumours, reducing the need for radical surgery which could lead to infertility. Lead researcher Professor Nandita deSouza from The Institute of Cancer Research said the study was extremely optimistic.
"As cervical cancers are usually identified at a very early stage through screening, our imaging technology can localise them and determine the size of the tumour. We can use this information to plan less radical surgery, preserving as much of the uterus and the cervix as possible," she said.
Prof deSouza said one of the major successes of this work was the exploitation of the diffusion of water around cells in cancer tissue to produce the image, a technique called 'diffusion weighted imaging'. This significantly improves the level of contrast between developing tumours and the surrounding tissues.
The new imaging technique involved the use of a vaginal probe to capture images of the cervix which created a much higher image resolution compared to a traditional external pelvic scan.
Researchers found that 88 per cent of tumours could be detected using an internal probe and diffusion-weighted imaging compared with only 77 per cent of the same tumours found using the existing external technique.
