Breast cancer became the most common cancer globally as of 2021, accounting for 12% of all new annual cancer cases worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. As for thyroid cancer, about 45,000 people get this disease every year and about 2,000 die from it. They are the two most representative superficial organ cancers.
The goal of routine screening is to catch cancer early since early-stage cancers are easier to treat than later-stage cancers, and the chance of survival is higher. For example, women whose breast cancer is detected at an early stage have a 93% or higher survival rate in the first five years.
Ultrasound is commonly used for superficial organ cancers screening, including breast cancer and thyroid cancer. Compared to other testing options such as mammograms, ultrasound exams of the breast do not use radiation and deliver real-time results. It costs less and is more widely available. For people with dense breast tissue, their abnormal area is hard to see on mammograms (breast x-ray). In this case, the ultrasound can get a better look at the suspicious area. Therefore, when screening breast cancer for women under age 35, ultrasound scanning is a high-efficient method.
Ultrasound is also one of the best ways to find out if the abnormality is solid or fluid-filled (a cyst). As the below ultrasound image shows, a breast cyst is easy to recognize, shown as no echo. Doctors can use color Doppler to do further verification. To improve the scanning efficiency of the breast, EDAN specially developed a wide linear transducer L12-5WQ, which has a wide footprint of 50 mm and high elements up to 256, delivering high-resolution ultrasound images.
Besides, when a breast abnormality is suspected to be cancer, a biopsy will be done to know for sure. EDAN Needle Guide Bracket and needle visualization function can help doctors to better locate the depth and position of suspicious areas, thus guiding biopsy needles precisely to the target area in the breast, greatly improving the operative efficiency.
Ultrasound imaging is also the main and the most useful method in thyroid cancer screening. Doctors use ultrasound to detect thyroid nodules, and further differentiate benign from malignant thyroid nodules.
EDAN Acclarix LX9 can deliver high-resolution ultrasound imaging, even mixed echoic thyroid nodules, and microcalcifications can be shown clearly, and sensitive to slow-flowing vessels. What’s more, EDAN Acclarix LX9 is equipped with elastography technology, which can provide valuable information for differential diagnosis. It allows the comparison of tissue elasticities between abnormal and normal tissue areas, therefore providing useful analytic information.
For more information about EDAN Ultrasound Systems, please visit https://www.edan.com/product/ultrasound/.
