A Utah state senator is pushing a bill that would encourage radiologists to include information about breast density in the report that women receive after a mammogram. The bill originally required the inclusion, but it was amended to merely encourage it.

Dense breast tissue may mask tumors on a mammogram and is a risk factor for breast cancer.

Senator Karen Mayne, D-West … read more »

T-rays: the next frontier?

Terahertz waves, also known by the much cooler-sounding name “T-rays,” are in the far-infrared part of the spectrum—some say between the microwave and infrared zones. Their wavelengths are hundreds of times longer than those of the rays in the visible light spectrum. Their most common use right now is in airport security scanners.

T-rays have great potential for … read more »

How do you precisely shape a hollow silicon wafer one thousandth of a millimeter in diameter? Scientists at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute in Houston have figured out a way. Their efforts may result in a better way to destroy breast cancer cells.

The wafers have to be exactly the right shape and size to bind to breast cancer cells and … read more »

The World Boxing Council this week announced that it would pay for mammograms for all women who are licensed professional boxers.

The WBC, one of the four major bodies that sanctions championship fights in boxing’s various weight divisions, appears to be offering mammograms for all female boxers, regardless of whether they compete in WBC-sanctioned bouts. It’s hard to tell for sure; … read more »

A new iron-based MRI contrast agent offers not only the benefit of safety but also a better means of differentiating  between benign and malignant tumors.

University of Pennsylvania engineers coated iron oxide nanoparticles with glycol chitosan, a sugar-based polymer that reacts to acids. The sugar keeps the particles from binding or being absorbed by the body, but this particular formulation allows … read more »

Researchers at Johns Hopkins In-Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center in Baltimore have begun a breathtaking five-year initiative to detect and treat breast, prostate, and other common cancers at their very earliest stages—when they’re hiding inside cells.

More than $8 million in grants from the National Cancer Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health) are fueling the initiative. It builds … read more »

A jury in Fairfax County, Virginia, decided that a radiologist should pay a 54-year-old woman $2.65 million for a 13-month delay in a breast cancer diagnosis, even though the woman continued to work and the delay caused no additional medical bills.

The plaintiff’s attorney, William E. Artz of Arlington, Virginia, said the verdict covered future medical expenses (which he estimated at … read more »

Low doses of ionizing radiation may not carry as much cancer risk as we’ve thought, according to researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.

Breast-cancer researcher Mina Bissell, PhD, explained:
Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work better than at higher doses. This nonlinear DNA damage response casts … read more »

For an older woman, there’s a good chance that any breast cancer detected by mammography will be a low-risk type, according to a new study by researchers at The University of California, San Francisco, and the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam.

The researchers also found that the advent of mammography seems to have led to an increase in the detection of … read more »

A new study finds that half of women age 80 or older receive screening mammograms for cancer at least every two years.

Should they?

The study, published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, examines rates of screening for breast, colorectal, cervical, and prostate cancer among the elderly in light of what the study calls “ambiguity of recommendations” regarding whether such screening … read more »