Method could enhance breast cancer testing and treatment

The method, devised at Johns Hopkins University, uses advanced microscopes equipped with tissue-penetrating laser light.

In a statement, the Johns Hopkins researchers said their criss-crossing optical images, made by shining a laser back and forth across a biopsied tissue sample a few millionths of a metre thick, can potentially be used with other tests to more accurately determine the need for lymph-node biopsy and removal in women at risk of metastatic breast cancer.

In what is believed to be the first study to measure minute changes in tumour connective-tissue fibres, researchers found that eight women whose cancers had spread beyond the breast through the body’s lymphatic system had about 10 per cent more densely packed and radially spread-out collagenous structural proteins than six women whose cancers had not yet spread.

Collagen fibres in the non-metastasised tumours, also obtained during breast biopsy, were more diffuse and arranged in a transverse or horizontal pattern. All 14 women in the study had aggressive, malignant breast cancer.