CAD system identifies abnormalities in breast sonograms

Cedara Software is developing a computer-assisted detection system for breast ultrasound. The software, announced as a work-in-progress at the RSNA meeting, is intended to identify the sonographic characteristics of benign as well as malignant breast masses and to classify the extent of malignancy for specific nodules.

The company is evolving four configurations of the breast CAD system, which require FDA approval before commercialization in the U.S. B-CAD will identify features of user-defined lesions that correspond to the BI-RADS lexicon in ultrasound images. B-CAD Plus, in addition to flagging user-defined breast lesions, will use sonographic characteristics to compute the probability of malignancy. B-CAD Pro will identify breast lesions and their features. B-CAD Live will provide all the features of the other CAD options in real-time.

The Cedara B-CAD technology was based on the analysis of more than 1400 images and data from patients with healthy breast tissue, as well as cases with known clinical outcomes following the diagnosis of a breast malignancy.