Opto-Acoustic Advantages

Seno Medical’s Imagio^® breast imaging system has the potential to provide physicians with vital information needed to better determine whether a suspicious mass is cancerous with the goal of reducing the rate of negative breast biopsies. Each year in the U.S., 1.6 million women undergo core needle or surgical breast biopsies after a suspicious mass is found through breast imaging or self-exams.¹ However, more than 80 percent of these breast biopsies reveal benign pathology.²

Seno’s opto-acoustic technology fused with ultrasound (OA/US) may reduce negative breast biopsies by combining laser optics and acoustics, providing radiologists greater confidence to confirm or rule out malignancies better than they can with ultrasound alone.³

The process starts by using laser light of two specific wavelengths to microscopically expand the affected cells, creating a soundwave that can be ultrasonically detected and registered.

Signals from the sensors are analyzed and co-registered into images that present a real-time blood map of the lesion in striking color. OA image contrast is related to both blood volume and oxygenation status.

In general, malignant masses are more vascular and deplete oxygen from the blood at a higher rate than do benign masses.

Blood within and around masses preferentially absorbs the light over normal tissue and becomes slightly heated. A transient thermoelastic expansion causes a tumor to emit a pressure or acoustic wave. This acoustic wave is then detected by sensors within the hand-held, opto-acoustic (OA) probe as it is positioned over the indicated area of the breast.

In general, malignant masses are more vascular and deplete oxygen from the blood at a higher rate than do benign masses.

The two wavelengths of laser light that are used in the Imagio^® OA system facilitate imaging by showing the relative differences between oxygenated and deoxygenated blood.