Breast Imaging Research Team Receives NIH R01 Grant

This past March, the National Institutes of Health awarded a R01 grant to Dr. Srinivasan Vedantham, Associate Professor of Radiology, and the Breast Imaging Research Team here at UMass Chan Medical School.  Drs. Vedantham, Karellas, Vijayaraghavan, Quinlan and Khan will utilize this 3 year grant to investigate the potential of preoperative high-resolution 3D breast computed tomography for reducing mastectomy rates in women with invasive lobular carcinoma.  Supporting the breast CT research also include Dr. Jade Watkins, Breast Imaging Fellow, Ms. Shi and Mr. Shrestha from Radiologic Physics Laboratory, Ms. Rollins and Ms. Dingui from Breast Imaging Section, and Ms. Waugh from UMMHC Breast Center.    

Lobular cancers of the breast are the second most common type of invasive breast cancers and account for 10-15% of all invasive breast cancers.  Lobular cancers occur more often in both breasts and in multiple locations than any other form of breast cancer.  Currently, breast MRI is the preferred imaging modality for determining if the cancer is present in multiple sites and its size for this type of cancer.  However, for 26% of the tumors, the size estimated by MRI differs from pathology after surgery by more than 1cm.  Accurate measurement of tumor size is important to direct appropriate treatment strategies.   Dedicated breast CT provides much higher spatial resolution than an MRI.  It also does not require breast compression and each scan only takes about 10 seconds.  Thus, the combined efforts of the Breast Imaging Research Team members are looking to challenge the existing paradigms on the accuracy of tumor size measurements. 

Acquisition of the breast CT system was made possible from philanthropic contributions from many generous donors including, a leadership gift from  Ms. Barbara Grant Donahue.