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The same 3-D ultrasound scans pregnant women get could help breast cancer patients and their doctors have a better idea of what they're up against.

Dr. Catherine Lee is leading an investigative study at Moffitt Cancer Center to compare the 3-D ultrasound to the standard ultrasound, mammogram, and breast MRI.

She'll test 40 patients with a breast cancer mass that's big enough to feel and see on the ultrasound before and after chemotherapy to see if the 3-D gives a more targeted picture to evaluate how large of a breast tumor and what kind of tumor a patient has.

"Ultrasound is, in the grand scheme of things, not too difficult of a test to tolerate. It doesn't take very long. It's not painful, particularly if we know what we're looking for. A lot of the other tests we use to look at breasts are not so comfortable -- mammograms are pretty uncomfortable, breast MRI which is really the latest technology is being widely used is not the most fun thing to go through. We're hoping that using an ultrasound in this fashion can maybe some day take the place of an MRI in assessing breast tumors," Dr. Lee said.

The imaging ultrasound s also cost hundreds of dollars less than breast MRI s. All of the study participants have to come through Moffitt and have surgery there so Dr. Lee can measure how big the tumor is when it's removed to compare it to the images.

Source: Moffitt Cancer Center

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