Researchers at the 251st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, revealed the development of a pill that could potentially improve techniques for breast cancer diagnostics.

Greg Thurber, Ph.D. and his team from the University of Michigan developed an oral pill containing an imaging agent that binds to cancer cells or blood vessels specific to tumors, with little background noise in the image.

Once attached to its target, the agent fluoresces under near-infrared light. At this wavelength, fluorescent tumors can only be detected 1 to 2 centimeters deep. However, according to Thurber, given the elasticity of breast tissue, pairing this technique with ultrasound in the same instrument should be able to detect most cancers.
Testing in mice showed that 50 to 60 percent of the agent gets absorbed into the bloodstream with the proper formulation.

If the researchers successfully formulate the pill for human patients, Thurber believes that it will bode well for women with dense breast tissue whose mammograms are often difficult to read.

The team is also designing the agent to specifically seek out aggressive tumors, so these tumors could be distinguished from slow-growing cancers such as ductal carcinoma in situ, a noninvasive breast cancer.

The dye is already in use in Europe for other clinical applications, but Thurber says that he does not know when his agent might go into human clinical trials.

Current methods for breast cancer diagnoses are sometimes limited because they identify lumps but cannot pinpoint which are cancerous. “Screening can potentially catch the disease early in some patients, but false positives can lead to unnecessary, aggressive treatments in patients who don't need them,” said Thurber, in a statement.

Mammograms cannot distinguish between cancerous and benign growths. Doctors have to take a biopsy, which are not 100 percent conclusive. “Our work could help change that,” he added.

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