Miraluma Breast Imaging
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Expert radiologists at Cancer Treatment Centers of America use Miraluma, the first-ever nuclear medicine test approved for breast imaging. Also known as sestamibi breast imaging, this innovative test is used by radiologists as an adjunct to mammography when identifying and locating cancer within your breasts, and produces striking pictures of lesions even in the midst of dense breast tissue.
Using Miraluma, we are better able to correctly identify some malignant lesions and can reduce the number of breast biopsies being performed. It is a non-invasive option that helps us overcome the obstacle of dense and fibrous breast tissue, to see some malignancies that other tests may have missed.
Today, the overall five-year survival rate for breast cancer is approximately eighty-three percent, but the rate can be as high as ninety-six percent if cancer is detected early, before it has spread to other parts of the body.
Mammography, however, is limited in its sensitivity and correctly identifies malignancies in only twenty to thirty percent of suspicious lesions. Dense, fibrous breast tissue makes accurate identification of tumors and abnormal structures even more difficult, and it usually is impossible for mammography to image areas surrounding your breasts, to look for tumors that may have migrated from the breast tissue to these adjacent areas.
The Miraluma test uses a radiopharmaceutical, (radioactive drugs that, when used for the purpose of diagnosis or therapy, typically elicit no physiological response from your body), which is thought to accumulate in areas of increased metabolic activity in malignant cells. In vitro studies show the concentration of the drug is up to nine times higher in malignant cells than in normal cells.
During the Miraluma test, you will receive a small amount of the radiopharmaceutical by injection, after which your breasts will be imaged with a Gamma camera. The test does not involve compressing your breasts as in a mammogram; however, you may experience a slight metallic taste after injection of the radiopharmaceutical.