Tissue elasticity is widely held as being strongly associated with disease, especially breast malignancy given the prominent place that physical examination holds in breast cancer screening. As a result, a sizeable technology effort has emerged to develop and evaluate new concepts for measuring and imaging parameters related to the mechanical characteristics of breast tissue. Project I, Magnetic Resonance Elastography (MRE), exploits phase contrast techniques to encode induced harmonic mechanical wave motion into phase accumulations during customized gradients to map the full displacement field in three dimensions from which mechanical property estimates are derived at or near the MR acquisition resolution. During the current funding period, Project I has successfully realized a robust MRE technique which has been deployed on a limited basis during clinical breast exams to demonstrate feasibility, provide preliminary estimates of the mechanical properties of normal breast, and highlight opportunities for extracting more complex mechanical behaviors. The existing MRE method is ready for systematic clinical deployment and will be used in a research plan consisting of (a) clinical evaluation, (b) continued technical advancement and (c) histopathological correlation to begin to identify the biological signatures of mechanical property contrast.
The specific aims for continuation of Project I include (1) development of MRE driving and reconstruction techniques to estimate viscoelastic mechanical behavior in breast tissue, (2) Optimization of image acquisition sequences and methods to reduce exam time (3) exploration of shear modulus and viscoelastic property correlations with histopathological analyses in mastectomy specimens where adequate tissue is available to spatially sample and orient the imaged volume, and (4) participation in the clinical study designs executed by the Clinical Core targeting screening abnormalities recommended for biopsy, palpable masses on clinical breast exams and pilot exams of locally-advanced disease receiving neoadjuvant therapy. If successful, these aims are expected to generate evidence sufficient to estimate convincingly the potential of MRE to contribute to differential diagnosis, and pilot data in support of a role in treatment prognosis and therapy monitoring which will inform decisions on the initiation of larger clinical trials with MRE in the future.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Research Program Projects (P01)
Project #
5P01CA080139-09
Application #
7826807
Study Section
Subcommittee G - Education (NCI)
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2009-05-01
Budget End
2010-04-30
Support Year
9
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$216,327
Indirect Cost
Name
Dartmouth College
Department
Type
DUNS #
041027822
City
Hanover
State
NH
Country
United States
Zip Code
03755
Halter, Ryan J; Hartov, Alex; Poplack, Steven P et al. (2015) Real-time electrical impedance variations in women with and without breast cancer. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 34:38-48
Epstein, N R; Meaney, P M; Paulsen, K D (2014) 3D parallel-detection microwave tomography for clinical breast imaging. Rev Sci Instrum 85:124704
Jiang, Shudong; Pogue, Brian W; Kaufman, Peter A et al. (2014) Predicting breast tumor response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy with diffuse optical spectroscopic tomography prior to treatment. Clin Cancer Res 20:6006-15
Meaney, Paul M; Kaufman, Peter A; Muffly, Lori S et al. (2013) Microwave imaging for neoadjuvant chemotherapy monitoring: initial clinical experience. Breast Cancer Res 15:R35
Laughney, Ashley M; Krishnaswamy, Venkataramanan; Rice, Tyler B et al. (2013) System analysis of spatial frequency domain imaging for quantitative mapping of surgically resected breast tissues. J Biomed Opt 18:036012
Krishnaswamy, Venkataramanan; Laughney, Ashley M; Wells, Wendy A et al. (2013) Scanning in situ spectroscopy platform for imaging surgical breast tissue specimens. Opt Express 21:2185-94
Jiang, Shudong; Pogue, Brian W; Michaelsen, Kelly E et al. (2013) Pilot study assessment of dynamic vascular changes in breast cancer with near-infrared tomography from prospectively targeted manipulations of inspired end-tidal partial pressure of oxygen and carbon dioxide. J Biomed Opt 18:76011
Laughney, Ashley M; Krishnaswamy, Venkataramanan; Rizzo, Elizabeth J et al. (2013) Spectral discrimination of breast pathologies in situ using spatial frequency domain imaging. Breast Cancer Res 15:R61
Meaney, Paul M; Goodwin, Douglas; Golnabi, Amir H et al. (2012) Clinical microwave tomographic imaging of the calcaneus: a first-in-human case study of two subjects. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 59:3304-13
Grzegorczyk, Tomasz M; Meaney, Paul M; Kaufman, Peter A et al. (2012) Fast 3-d tomographic microwave imaging for breast cancer detection. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 31:1584-92

Showing the most recent 10 out of 129 publications