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  Awards Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Ctr. Boston Medical Center Boston University Brigham and Women's Hospital Broad Institute Cambridge Health Alliance Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Ctr. Children's Hospital Boston Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Grants Harvard University Joslin Diabetes Center Lahey Clinic Mass. General Hospital Mass. Health Law McLean Hospital MIT New England Baptist Hospital Personnel Moves Public Health Research Short White Coat Tufts-New England Medical Center Tufts University UMass Memorial Medical Center University of Massachusetts VA Medical Centers    A Healthy Blog Running A Hospital Nature Network Boston SciBos - Corie Lok's blog Kevin, M.D. Blog, MD Dr. Flea's blog Nurse at small Your Child's Health Blog Healthy Children blog WBUR's CommonHealth Other Globe Blogs
Elizabeth Cooney is a health reporter for the Worcester Telegram &
Gazette.
Boston Globe Health and Science staff:
Scott Allen Alice Dembner Carey Goldberg Liz Kowalczyk Stephen Smith Colin Nickerson Beth Daley Karen Weintraub, Deputy Health and Science Editor, and Gideon Gil, Health and Science Editor. Short White Coat blogger Ishani Ganguli  |
« Today's Globe: VA hospitals, TB fight, diets compared, hospice for minorities, stent rival, heart failure drug, NIH flatlining | Main | State climate for physicians getting worse, MMS says » Monday, March 26, 2007Contrast agent may shed light on breast cancer diagnosisResearchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School are reporting preliminary success with a new way to screen for breast cancer that one day might supplement mammography, according to the American Chemical Society.
Dr. John Frangioni and researchers in his lab have developed a way to make a contrast agent that after being injected into the bloodstream binds to a particular calcium salt called hydroxyapatite. That salt is found in malignant micro-calcifications in the breast, but not in benign ones, according to an ACS statement. The contrast agents are designed to be used with optical tomography, an imaging method that sends near-infrared light through the body. Frangioni said it would likely be a few years before the compound is tested in human trials. Kumar R. Bhushan, a postdoctoral fellow in Frangioni's lab, is scheduled to present the details today at the ACS meeting in Chicago.
Posted by Elizabeth Cooney at 11:20 AM
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