Space technology fights cancer

The camera may reduce the need for painful surgery

Scientists are using a camera designed for use in space to help detect the spread of breast cancer.

The device could help avoid the need for many women to undergo painful and complicated surgery.

The gamma-ray camera was developed to detect cosmic radiation in space.

I hope the camera could be used for other forms of cancer too

Matthew Dallimore, Southampton University

But it has now been modified for medical use.

The device can help doctors to determine how far breast cancer has spread.

Until now, this is often only possible by removing the lymph nodes under the arm, so that they can be analysed.

The operation is known as axillary lymph-node dissection. It is painful and disfiguring, and in many cases associated with post-operative complications.

Using the gamma-ray camera enables most of this surgery to be avoided.

The camera enables doctors to discover where the first "sentinel" lymph node close to the breast cancer tumour is located.

Research has shown that if this node is free of cancer, so is the rest of the system.

Removal of this single node is a minor operation compared with a complete dissection and is 95.5% certain to determine cancer spread.

Gamma rays

Before the camera is used, the patient is injected with a radioactive tracer that emits gamma rays.

Acting in a similar way to a metal detector, the camera can find the lymph nodes by detecting the tracer chemical concentrated in them.

Astronomer Matthew Dallimore, a PhD student at Southampton University, is developing the camera with part of an award from the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.

He said: "It's hard to come by funding for astronomy instrumentation, so we are branching out into other areas.

"We have demonstrated the performance of a small-scale medical detector.

"This funding will allow me to build and test a full-scale prototype, to develop the business plan to bring the device to an industrial partner, and to turn the camera into a commercially viable gamma camera.

"If the venture is successful then I hope the camera could be used for other forms of cancer too."

'Welcomed'

A spokesperson for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund said: "The ability to detect tumours and trace exactly where they have spread allows surgeons to make precise excisions with the minimum of damage to surrounding healthy tissue.

"This means that secondary tumours, however small, can be located and removed - reducing the chance that the cancer will come back.

Translating research from other fields to treat breast cancer is good news

Delyth Morgan, Breakthrough Breast Cancer

"The Imperial Cancer Research Fund is currently carrying out its own research into the use of novel cancer-imaging techniques for various cancers including breast and ovarian.

"We hope Mr Dallimore's device proves to be effective."

Delyth Morgan, chief executive, of the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: "Translating research from other fields to treat breast cancer is good news.

"Such efforts should be encouraged. Any developments which may reduce the need for surgery are to be welcomed."