Improved lab equipment 'could save thousands'

Thousands of women could be saved each year by European Commission efforts to improve the lab equipment involved in diagnosing breast cancer.

A project being carried out by the European authority is looking at ways to integrate different imaging techniques into lab equipment for breast cancer diagnoses.

Magnetic resonance imaging, mammography and other types of scan, as well as information about the patient, are combined under the HAMAM project to provide better early indications of tumour growth.

Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice-president for the digital agenda, says: "Breast cancer is a condition that touches millions of lives; in Europe about 130,000 women die of breast cancer every year."

However, with better early detection of the disease, "we could save many thousands of them".

More than €3 million (£2.5 million) in funding has been allocated to the project in order to tackle the 350,000 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed across the EU each year.

HAMAM is short for Highly Accurate Breast Cancer Diagnosis through Integration of Biological Knowledge, Novel Imaging Modalities, and Modelling and is coordinated by EIBIR, the European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research.