Oncovision’s new mammogram system enables detecting tumors the size of the head of a pin, and make a diagnosis one year before other systems.
Oncovision, specializing in healthcare technology, has designed a new mammogram system that will reduce false positives for tumors from the current level of up to 25% to only 2%. It is not necessary to compress the breast in order to obtain better images, and it will allow detecting tumors in very early stages, up to one year before the diagnostic systems that are used today.
The design presented by the company from Valencia is based on the use of nuclear medicine and, specifically, on tomography through emission of positrons. This allows non-invasive measuring of the metabolic activity of a tumor.
The system, called “MAMMI”, offers images that have up to four times greater resolution than current full body PET scans, and using a much lower tracer dose.
The way it studies cells is also different. The “MAMMI” system analyzes activities, not forms. In this manner it analyzes, for example, the consumption of sugar in the tumor cells. These consume between 20 and 40 times more sugar than normal cells; precisely for this reason, the system is able to detect this activity.
To analyze the chest, the patient lies down on a bed and introduces the breast into a circular scanner. In this way it is not necessary to flatten the breast, and doctors are able to see areas that common mammograms leave hidden.
Only two MAMMI exist in the world. In Spain, the first hospital possessing one will be Castellón’s provincial hospital; the other will be at Nacional Rebagliatti in Lima, Peru.
The initiative is closely tied to the European Union’s program “Combating Cancer”.