Mammograms save lives, but for millions of women with dense breast tissue, it's not enough. Doctors have designed a new type of technology that picks up the tumors that mammograms miss.
Singing is a talent that runs in Marcia Maring's family.
"My whole family majored in music," she said.
But that's not the only trait passed down through the generations.
"My aunt was 40-years-old when she had breast cancer. Then my mother developed breast cancer," she said.
Then a few years ago, so did Marcia. Like 25 percent of women, she has dense breast tissue which makes it hard to detect tumors.
"In fact, in those women mammography can miss one out of every two cancers," said Dr. Deborah Rhodes, internal medicine specialist, Mayo Clinic.
A team of doctors at the Mayo Clinic developed molecular breast imaging or MBI. Wwomen get an injection of a radioactive tracer that travels to the tumor cells and lights them up. On the left is a mammogram. On the right the new scan.
"It's like seeing a lighthouse," said Michael O'Connor, PhD, professor of radiologic physics, Mayo Clinic. "You see this beacon in the breast and it's very easy to pick up the tumor."
In a study of more than 900 women, molecular breast imaging picked up three times as many cancerous tumors.
"In about 10 percent of the cases we would also find additional small tumors that the mammogram was missing," said O'Connor.
That's exactly what happened to Marcia. In the study, the MBI found a second tumor the mammogram missed.
"I was like wow, I didn't realize that the mammogram only had picked up the central tumor," she said.
After surgery and chemo, Marcia's a healthy mom getting ready to send her kids off to college.
The procedure is expected to become available to the public within the next few years.
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