Experience of Using RTM-01-RES Radiometer for Breast Cancer Diagnosis

Burdina L.M., M.D., Pinkhosevich I.G., M.D, Khailenko V.A., Ph.D., Vesnin S.G., Ph.D., Tikhomirova N.N.

 Moscow
Brunch-1 of the Mammology Health Centre
Blokhin Russian Oncological Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Medical
Sciences
RES, Ltd.

In Brunch-1 of the Mammology Health Centre the RTM-01-RES microwave imaging system has been used from December of 1997. For 5 years 2233 examinations have been performed and 1506 patients have been examined.

RTM-Diagnosis is based on measuring natural electromagnetic radiation from the patient's body at microwave frequencies. It provides an examiner with information about the temperature at the depth of 3-5 cm. It is the main difference between RTM-Diagnosis and Infrared Thermography, which measures the skin temperature.

For evaluating the reliability of RTM-Diagnosis, its results were compared with cytological and histological results, if a patient had surgery.

The use of RTM-Diagnosis in conjunction with Mammography provides an extremely high sensitivity for breast cancer diagnosis.

The following Table demonstrates the sensitivity of the methods.

 

Number of breast cancer patients 201 Number of cancer patents missed by RTM-Diagnosis 23 Number of cancer patents missed by Mammography 22 Number of cancer patents missed by both Mammography and RTM-Diagnosis 4

 

Each method had a sensitivity of about 90%. In the same time, when they were used together the sensitivity increased up to 98%. Mammography detects anatomical changes, while RTM-Diagnosis detects functional changes, so the share of the joint omissions is less than 2%. It should be noted that in 14 cases (7%) RTM-Diagnosis detected breast cancer earlier than other methods could detect the disease, as thermal changes precede anatomical changes detected by Mammography and Ultrasound. Thus RTM-Diagnosis allows an examiner to select patents, who are at a risk of breast cancer for further complex diagnosis and treatment.

It should be noted that RTM-Diagnosis is a very effective method for breast screening and the treatment monitoring of benign breast diseases. The method is absolutely harmless, so it can be repeated many times.

Conclusion

The long-term experience of using the RTM-01-RES microwave imaging system has shown that it is a very effective diagnostic method and it is useful to include it in the complex breast cancer diagnostics.