Combating Breast Cancer - Research & Diagnosing Technology
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Above: NASA's researchers hope the "smart probe" will improve
a doctor's ability to quickly diagnose uncertain tissue masses.
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Outside Earth's atmosphere and beyond low Earth orbit, space crews may be
exposed to different types of potentially harmful radiation. Thus, space radiation
research is an important element of NASA's Life Sciences Division's Biomedical
Research and Countermeasures Program. Space radiation research focuses on understanding
how different kinds of radiation encountered in space alter living tissue and
on developing ways of preventing damage to healthy tissue or accelerating the
repair of damaged tissue.
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Knowledge gained through space radiation research will contribute to finding
the source for possible treatments of cancer. Research and technology development
sponsored by NASA's Life Sciences Division promises to improve understanding of
how cancer develops and methods of detecting and perhaps even treating cancer.
The Facts
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer afflicting American women.
This year, 182,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States
alone. According to the National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations, one
in nine women today will develop the disease (compared to one in 14 in 1960).
U.S. health care costs associated with breast cancer total more than $8 billion
a year.
Doctors have identified some risk factors for breast cancer, but no identifiable
risk factors are obvious in 70 percent of breast cancer cases. The cause of breast
cancer is unknown making methods of prevention are difficult to determine. For
these reasons, the best way to beat breast cancer is by early detection.
NASA researchers are developing 3D MRI's and Sonograms that will give doctors
a better look at breast cancer.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health emphasizes
the importance of mammography in its guidelines for early detection of breast
cancer, especially for women who are over 40 or have a family history of breast
cancer. Mammography, coupled with a clinical examination, is the best tool available
for early detection, and early detection greatly improves a cancer patients chances
of survival.
In July 1994, NASA and the NCI signed a memorandum of agreement to collaborate
in studying the effects of radiation on human health and the mitigation of those
effects. NASA researchers currently are using human mammary-tissue cells and rodent
mammary-gland cells in experiments intended to improve understanding of the role
of radiation in causing and curing cancer as well as the process by which cancer
develops. 
Digital Mammography Imaging
Clinical trials of mammography have shown that it has the potential to reduce
breast cancer mortality by about 30 percent in women aged 50 and over, according
to the NCI. For example, mammography is the only means of detecting the conditions
known as lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS) and ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS),
which rarely cause breast lumps. While some doctors do not technically consider
these conditions cancers, LCIS is viewed as a sign of elevated risk of breast
cancer, and DCIS can progress to malignancy and spread. Again, detection as early
as possible is a desirable goal.
A refinement of state-of-the-art mammography technology called digital mammography
holds great promise for improving the detection of breast cancer in its early
stages and thus improving patients' chances for survival. Given this potential,
NASA signed an agreement with the NCI's National Digital Mammography Development
Group in 1993 to identify space technologies that might improve cancer diagnosis.
Former analog mammography techniques are not sufficiently sensitive to detect
small lumps against the dense background of breast tissue in young women. NASA
digital imaging and sensing technologies developed for detecting extremely faint
objects or signals in space may contribute toward improving existing mammography
techniques and applying new digital imaging technology to mammography.
One improvement option under study involves digitizing conventional X-ray mammograms
for analysis by a derivation of a highly sensitive digital signal detection technique
that NASA scientists originally developed to pick out faint radio signals in space
from a growing blare of galactic and human-made background radio noise. Digital
mammograms could be produced directly for analysis using a space technology called
the charge-coupled device (CCD). Direct digital imaging methods offer the advantage
of better-quality images, due to the higher contrast provided by the digital image
detector compared to X-ray imagery.
Bioreactor Technology
A space biomedical research tool called the rotating-wall bioreactor, developed
by NASA's Microgravity Sciences and Applications Division, may help cancer researchers
learn more about how cancers develop. This bioreactor simulates microgravity conditions
by means of a continuously rotating cell-culture container.
Rotation of the cell-culture vessel essentially neutralizes the effect of gravity
that tends to compress cell cultures. The bioreactor enables cell cultures to
grow in homogeneous distribution with little agitation. By eliminating the effect
of gravity, the rotating-wall technique produces cancer-tissue cultures that more
closely resemble cancerous tumors growing in the human body than do tissue cultures
produced by more conventional techniques. The closer the tissue culture resembles
a real cancerous growth, the more accurate the results of these culture tests
will predict the effectiveness of treatments.
Researchers with NASA and the University of South Florida are collaborating
on the development of three-dimensional tissue models of breast and ovarian cancers
using cell cultures produced in NASA's bioreactor. They are determining if breast
and ovarian cancer cell cultures produced in this bioreactor might be more useful
in testing chemotherapeutic and biological anti-cancer agents than conventional
cell cultures.
Future Innovations
A typical fear of women undergoing a mammogram is hearing that their results
showed an unknown mass. But in the near future doctors may be able to decrease
the stressful time of uncertainty before biopsy results allow doctors to diagnose
whether the growth is benign or malignant.
NASA researchers in conjunction with Stanford University's School of Medicine
are currently developing a "smart probe" that will someday improve diagnosis
accuracy. This new tool will decrease the size of the incision and improve the
accuracy in less time than current biopsy techniques. The smart probe consists
of a number of tiny sensors that measure tissue stiffness, light absorption, blood
flow, and oxygen depletion.
Conventional biopsies us a syringe to remove a tissue sample from a growth.
Then, the sample is taken to a lab and analyzed for diagnosis. The smart probe
works in a similar way. An ultrasound guides the doctor while inserting the probe.
The probe pierces the mass and takes a number of measurements. A computer analyzes
the data and presents it on a monitor for the doctor's diagnosis.
Since the diagnosis is instantaneous, patients may some day be able to go to
a doctor and have a mammogram, biopsy, and removal of malignant tumors all in
one day reducing the number of incisions and the resulting scar tissue. Though
such a day is in the distant future, it is possible.
Researchers are also working on improving MRI and ultrasound technology. NASA
researchers are developing three-dimensional imaging software that will enhance
both MRI and ultrasounds. With a three-dimensional image, doctors can perform
biopsies and surgeries more accurately, with smaller incisions. Similar MRI technology
has already proven invaluable in brain surgery.
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