A novel tissue imaging method using short pulse magneto acoustic wave

Abstract

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers and the leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide. Breast cancer incidence is increasing over the years with more than 1 million new cases reported each year. In addition to that, an average of 373000 women died globally every year in conjunction to the disease. In Malaysia, National Cancer Registry report for the year 2003-2005 states that, the incidence rate of breast cancer in Malaysian population is 47.4 per 100000 populations with Chinese is at the highest rate of 59.9, followed by Indian at 54.2 and Malay at 34.9 per 100000 populations. With the yearly increasing trend, improvement in diagnosis and treatment method is desirable to increase survival rate. In the current medical practice, the goal of breast ultrasound imaging in breast cancer diagnostic is to achieve a more specific conclusion following a suspicious mammographic finding and to prevent unnecessary biopsies to find breast cancers missed by mammography. However, the sensitivity of ultrasound imaging in breast cancer detection is so much lower. This limits ultrasound imaging from taking a dominant role in breast screening. Tough ultrasonography has been declares as the current mainstay in breast cancer diagnosis, studies show that the proportion of patient in whom breast ultrasonography is considered necessary is only 40%. This means that, ultrasonography is not indicated for the rest 60% of patients referred for breast imaging. This practice explains major constraint of ultrasonography in breast imaging that limits its usage for diagnostic of breast symptoms and for screening asymptomatic patients. Hence, innovation to ultrasound imaging is very crucial so that this modality is capable