A whole breast ultrasound tomography system serves as an adjunct to digital mammography in the screening of asymptomatic women with dense breast tissue.

The Delphinus Medical Technologies (Novi, MI, USA) SoftVue 3-D whole breast ultrasound tomography system incorporates a circular ultrasound transducer that features proprietary triple acoustic detection (TriAD), providing both reflection imaging for tissue structure and transmission imaging (measuring sound speed and attenuation) to display tissue characteristics. With contoured curves and recessed lighting, SoftVue provides a calming patient experience, with no breast compression and no radiation.

During the exam, the patient relaxes on her stomach with her breast submerged in a warm water bath. The breast is comfortably stabilized and centered with a disposable SequrBreast Interface gel pad. Imaging is performed with a proprietary 360-degree ring transducer, scanning each breast from chest wall to nipple in an average of three minutes, capturing new images every two millimeters. The captured signals are then analyzed using sophisticated algorithms that provide cross-sectional slices of the entire volume of breast tissue.

“Our SoftVue System delivers a breakthrough in tissue characterization and improves the ability to find cancers in dense breast patients. It will be a game changer that will transform clinical practice with a fundamentally new, and highly impactful approach,” said Mark Forchette, president and CEO of Delphinus. “TriAD technology effectively characterizes tissue by recording reflection, speed, and direction of sound waves moving through breast tissue, unlike traditional ultrasound which utilizes only reflection.”

“SoftVue plus mammography finds more cancers when screening women with dense breasts. Same day imaging optimizes workflow while providing unparalleled patient comfort with no compression or radiation, making patient screening more comprehensive, efficient and effective,” said Rachel Brem, MD, director for breast imaging at George Washington University Hospital (Washington DC, USA). “It is exciting to have a new cutting-edge technology that detects more cancers and does so with fewer biopsies.”

Breast density is a measurement of the amount of fatty tissue versus the amount of fibrous tissue in the breast. Because both cancer and dense tissue appear white on a mammogram, tumors often remain masked, resulting in almost one third of cancerous tumors in dense breasts being masked by the tissue during X-ray mammography. According to a 2014 report published by the Journal of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, an estimated 43.3% of women between the ages of 40 and 74 years old have extremely dense breast tissue. 

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