It used to take more than an hour for Dr. Kathy Schilling to diagnose breast cancer from an MRI. Now she can do it in about 10 minutes, using a computer-enhanced MRI developed by an FAU mathematics professor.
Schilling is the medical director of Imaging and Intervention at Boca Raton Community Hospital’s Center for Breast Care. She uses FAU’s MRI technology to detect breast cancer in patients earlier than she could have with a mammogram or a black and white MRI.
This is good news for the more than 45,000 breast cancer cases that pass through the Center each year. In America, one in every nine women will develop breast cancer during their lifetime. And their best chance to fight the disease is through early detection.
What makes this computer-enhanced MRI technology so effective is the image it creates. The color-coded 3-D picture helps doctors like Schilling see details in the soft tissue of the breast. This is something that’s hard to see with a 2-D mammogram or regular black-and-white MRI image.
The image is generated using a formula that’s based on the principle of fractals – large, irregular geometric patterns made by many identical smaller, irregular patterns. The connection is that ducts within human breast tissue have similar fractal properties, which allows the formula to be applied. Basically, the scan shows areas of concentrated fluid in the breast.
“Cancer cells are different than normal cells,” Schiller explains. They need more nutrients, which they get through new blood cells. So when a patient is injected with a contrast agent during an MRI, these areas light up like light bulbs.
The fluid concentration is then mapped out using the fractal formula. “We’re looking for the sharp rise and fall off…the red part,” says Schilling as she points to the MRI image on the computer screen.
It sounds complicated, but the computer-enhanced MRI – called dynamic imaging – actually makes it easier for doctors to detect cancer.
In an initial test of the technology, which was spearheaded by Schilling, they used the scan on 65 patients and found that one-third of them had more cancer than they previously thought. In invasive cases, it’s nearly 100 percent accurate. Mammograms only detect about 85 to 89 percent of tumors.
The BRCH’s Center for Brest Care, where Schilling works, has been using the technology since 2002. Since then they’ve diagnosed more than 800 patients with it.
Researchers at FAU are trying to get federal money to create a center to further develop this kind of imaging technology, says Larry Lemanski, vice president of research at FAU. “We’re also trying to develop the system into a kit that is more economical.”
Right now, dynamic imaging is expensive, so it’s only used for high risk individuals or patients before they have surgery, Schilling says. It can also be used during a biopsy to guide the doctor.
“The downside is that most communities aren’t using it because it costs too much,” she says. However, “it is being used, and it’s a good example of bringing people’s scientific work into a clinical setting to help people.”
How It WorksFAU math professor Heinz-Otto Peitgen (right) worked with researchers from the University of Bremen in Germany to develop the computer-enhanced MRI technology, called “dynamic imaging.” The process works a lot like a regular MRI, and the whole thing takes about 20 minutes.
STEP 1: The patient is given a contrast agent through an IV. This will light up different parts of the breast tissue and make it easier to see what’s going on.
STEP 2: The patient is placed in the MRI machine and scanned.
STEP 3: The scan takes a series of five pictures, eachlasting a minute.
STEP 4: The information from the images is plotted on a graph in the computer, using a mathematical formula based on the principle of fractals.
STEP 5: The graph information is translated into the color-coded 3-D picture, which the doctor uses to spot cancerous lesions and other abnormalities.