Jan 22, 2006

New Technology For Lung Cancer Detection

As you all know, currently lung cancer has a grim prognosis, with only 12-15 percent of patients diagnosed with lung caner living long term. Researchers and physicians all over the world have been trying to device methods to improve lung cancer survival from this bleak looking numbers. Early detection and intervention would improve the outcome in lung cancer as it is in many cancers lung breast cancer. Detecting and treating lung cancer when they are small for example like when they are 3 centimeter or less in size improves the survival to about 75 percent.

As I have previously written in this blog, spiral CT scan is a technique that is capable of detecting lung tumors early. In this type of CT scan, the physician obtains about 500 separate slice images of the chest with very high resolution. This would enable the physician to find small lung tumors, before it may have spread to other organs, much like a mammogram in breast cancer. The problem with spiral CT scan is that, it takes for ever to study the 500 or so slice that the machine produces for one person. Large-scale screening using this technique becomes practically impossible or at least very difficult because of the enormous amount of work involved.

Computer-aided detection (CAD), can theoretically replace much of manpower with the computer technology. The computer-aided system that is available so far has not been very sensitive to do the job without errors, so a large number of false positive results occur with CAD.

Now there is progress in this field. Researchers from University of Oxford Engineering Science department have developed a new technique incorporating a process called Visual Moving Features (VMF) for detecting pulmonary nodules. VMF detects a predefined structure in a subject by analyzing the image based on a representation of the structure constructed across a number of parallel image planes. The method has been tested on results from 12 clinical cases involving a total of 3875 sectional images and 106 lung nodules. The technology was so accurate that, every nodule recognized by a skilled radiologist was detected by the Oxford method.

May be this the technology of the future for early lung cancer detection.

Scott      

Do You Read All Of Our Cancer Blogs?

Do you read all of the blogs published by medicineworld.org? Many of our bloggers are busy keeping you updated on the various health related topics. We publish the following blogs at this time.

Cancer blog: I manage the cancer blog with lots of help and support form other bloggers. Through this cancer blog my friends and I try to bring stories of hope for patients with cancer. The cancer blog often republishes important blog posts from other cancer related blogs at Medicineworld.org. If you are searching for a blog that covers wide variety of cancer topics, this may be the one for you.

Breast cancer blog: Breast cancer blog is run by Emily and other bloggers and they bring you the latest stories, news and events that are related to breast cancer. Increasing awareness about breast cancer among women and in the general population is the main goal of this breast cancer blog.

Lung cancer blog: Lung cancer blog is managed by Scott with the help of other bloggers. Through this blog Scott and his friends constantly remind the readers about the dangers of smoking. It's a never-ending struggle against this miserable disease with which a social stigma of smoking is associated.

Colon cancer blog: Colon cancer blog is run by Sue and other bloggers. Sue brings a personal touch to the colon cancer blog since her mother died of colon cancer few years ago. She writes about stories, research news and advances in treatment related to colon cancer.

Prostate cancer blog: Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among American men. American Cancer Society estimates that over 230,000 new cases of prostate cancer occur in the United state every year. This important blog about prostate cancer is run by Mark and other bloggers. This blog brings news, stories, and other personal observations related to prostate cancer.

Medicineworld.org publishes a diabetes watch blog and this blog is run by JoAnn other bloggers. This diabetes watch blog brings you the latest in the field of diabetes. This includes personal stories, advances in diagnosis and treatment, and other observations about diabetes. Improving awareness about diabetes is an important mission of this group.

Janet      

Lung cancer
We engage a never-ending daily struggle to understand and defeat the hidden mysteries of cancer. This is a long and laborious fight, but some moments stand out as grim reminders of the severity of the problem and ruthlessness of the enemy. We recently heard about the sad demise of Peter Jennings, who was the news anchor of ABC News for a long time.