A study of micro calcification detection in excised breast tissue by vibro-acoustography

X-ray mammography is the principal modality used today for detection of breast micro calcifications and breast lesions associated with breast cancer. X-ray mammography, however, is ionizing and its sensitivity is greatly reduced in dense breasts. Hence, alternative non-invasive and non-ionizing breast imaging tools that can aid physicians to better diagnose early-stage breast lesions are of great interest. Vibro-acoustography is a novel noninvasive imaging technique that uses ultrasound in a fundamentally new way. This method uses the radiation force of ultrasound to vibrate the tissue at low (kHz) frequency and records the resulting response to produce images related to the mechanical properties of the tissue. To assess the performance of vibro-acoustography in detecting breast micro calcifications, we conducted vibro-acoustography on 74 fixed breast tissues samples with known micro calcifications based on their radiographs. The results indicate that in most cases micro-calcifications can be detected by vibro-acoustography. Further development of the vibro-acoustography may lead to a novel imaging tool for in vivo detection of micro calcifications.