Tag Archives: images

Cryptic clues drive new theory of bowel cancer development

The researchers produced evidence that stem cells are responsible for maintaining and regenerating the ‘crypts’ that are a feature of the bowel lining, and believe these stem cells are involved in bowel cancer development, a controversial finding as scientists are still divided on the stem cells’ existence. Using 3D imaging technologies, Dr Chin Wee Tan and Professor Tony Burgess from the Structural Biology division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute showed for the first time the bowel generates new intestinal crypts by a process called ‘budding’. The finding overturns the existing theory of how intestinal crypts form, with significant implications for our understanding of bowel cancer development. Intestinal ‘crypts’ are pocket-like wells in the bowel wall that produce mucous and absorb nutrients and water…

New technique enables increasingly accurate PET scan to detect cancer, heart conditions

In the future, the newly developed technique will enable increasingly accurate image acquisition especially during PET scans performed to detect cancers of the chest and upper abdomen, and inflammatory diseases of the heart. PET scanning, or positron emission tomography, is a modern nuclear medicine imaging method, which allows for the detection of cancer and heart conditions. Thanks to enhanced image quality, PET images provide new and increasingly accurate data, potentially improving diagnosis reliability and treatment response monitoring. High-quality image data makes the treatment more efficient both medically and financially. …

3D mammography increases cancer detection, reduces call-back rates

Conventional digital mammography is the most widely-used screening modality for breast cancer, but may yield suspicious findings that turn out not to be cancer, known as false-positives. Such findings are associated with a higher recall rate, or the rate at which women are called back for additional imaging or biopsy that may be deemed unnecessary. Tomosynthesis, however, allows for 3-D reconstruction of the breast tissue, giving radiologists a clearer view of the overlapping slices of breast tissue…

Imaging breast cancer with light

If effective, the new device, called a photoacoustic mammoscope, would represent an entirely new way of imaging the breast and detecting cancer. Instead of X-rays, which are used in traditional mammography, the photoacoustic breast mammoscope uses a combination of infrared light and ultrasound to create a 3-D map of the breast…