NEW AVENUES IN 3-D COMPUTERIZED (STEREOPATHOLOGICAL) IMAGING OF BREAST-CANCER (REVIEW)

Multimodal methods of three-dimensional (3-D) imaging of breast cancer are described. These involve scanning confocal microscopy, using 50 M Hz acoustic or near-infrared images, four-view (tetrahedral) radiograp hy and x-ray projection microscopy. Computerised volume data from thes e techniques can be used to produce three-dimensional images of tissue ranging from 500 mu m to approximately 4 mm in thickness. Preliminary findings indicate that stereoscopic images or 3-D computerised recons tructions are capable of advancing the understanding of the structure of ductal carcinoma in situ, lesions simulating microinvasive breast c arcinoma in situ, and the 3-D growth patterns of invasive forms of bre ast carcinoma. In the future computerised image fusion techniques seem likely to be able to take advantage of multimodal imaging of breast c ancers, thus correcting primary imaging artefacts, improving robustnes s, and combining complementary information. In addition, the use of co mputerised tetrahedral radiography may change the intraoperative asses sment of breast cancers, which mostly depend at present upon subsequen t laboratory procedures that take days to perform.