Mammography firms move toward 3D digital breast tomosynthesis

GE, Hologic will show full-field works in progress

With its acquisition of Instrumentarium completed on Oct. 9, GE Medical Systems (South Hall 4100) is poised to begin delivering advanced mammography applications, including tomosynthesis.

"With our in-house expertise and the patent, we are comfortable that we will be developing our tomosynthesis program quickly," said Laura Bakosh, general manager of women's healthcare for GE in the Americas.

The tuned aperture CT (TACT) 3D product developed by Instrumentarium is a stepping stone to full-field breast tomosynthesis. TACT obtains images from several angles as the x-ray source moves along the top of the breast. It uses a reference point located above the breast to calculate imaging geometry. GE's full-field digital tomosynthesis captures images from 11 positions as the x-ray tube navigates across a 50º arc. The technique reconstructs the images as 1-mm-thick planar scans with a pixel resolution of 100 mm throughout the breast.

A workstation optimized to display the results of tomosynthesis will accompany TACT 3D in the GE booth at the RSNA meeting.

Hologic (South Hall 2709) is also in the race to develop breast tomosynthesis. At the RSNA meeting, Hologic will demonstrate a work-in-progress tomosynthesis hardware and software package that can be added to the Selenia full-field digital mammography system. The package, slated for delivery around the world next year, acquires a full volume of data without increasing the x-ray dose beyond conventional screen-film or digital mammography levels.