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FDA Approves New Breast Scanning Technology Developed in Rochester

At left, a tumor viewed on standard mammography. At right, the same tumor viewed on the 3D imaging system.
urmc.rochester.edu
At left, a tumor viewed on standard mammography. At right, the same tumor viewed on the 3D imaging system.

 The FDA has approved a new 3-D breast scanning system developed by a physicist at the University of Rochester to make it easier for doctors to diagnose breast cancer in its early stages.

The Koning Breast CT is the latest advance in imaging to be made available for commercial distribution.

UR Medicine radiologist Dr. Avice O'Connell conducted some of the clinical trials on the system. She says it doesn’t replace the traditional screening mammogram.

"But if there is a finding, an area of concern, the woman can have the cone beam CT as her next diagnostic step to see if the finding on the mammogram is real, or if it's really nothing - one of those false positives."

Unlike a mammogram, this test requires the patient to lie face down on a table as one breast at a time is suspended through an opening, and there is no compression of the tissue.  X-rays are dispersed in a large cone shape, rather than the narrow beams of a traditional scan, capturing the whole breast scan in a single rotation. 

The amount of radiation is the same as in a mammogram.

The Koning Breast CT was invented by Ruola Ning, Ph.D., president and founder of Koning Corporation, A URMC startup company.   Ning began work on system in 1989.

Beth Adams joined WXXI as host of Morning Edition in 2012 after a more than two-decade radio career. She was the longtime host of the WHAM Morning News in Rochester. Her career also took her from radio stations in Elmira, New York, to Miami, Florida.