Elasticity imaging of breast cancer during treatment

One woman in seven will develop breast cancer in her lifetime increasing chances of occurrence with age. Breast cancer is thus the most frequently diagnosed cancer (excluding skin cancer) accounting for 29% of all cancers diagnosed each year. More importantly, breast cancer remains the second most lethal in women with 20% of new invasive breast cancer patients dying from the disease each year. In the case of malignant tumors, treatment depends on the stage of disease progression. In non-metastatic breast tumors, surgical intervention followed by radiation therapy is typically recommended. In locally advanced breast cancer, patients are treated with neo-adjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) re-surgically. Successful NACT and FUS thermal ablation may lead to softening and stiffening of the breast tumor, respectively. If stiffness changes are monitored, treatment response can be reliably and timely detected. To this end, we have developed two noninvasive, time- and cost-efficient theranostic methodologies for characterization and treatment of female breast cancer: 1) NACT monitoring of locally advanced malignant tumors with Harmonic Motion Imaging (HMI) and 2) FUS treatment of benign and non-metastatic tumors with HMI-guided Focused Ultrasound (HMIgFUS). HMI employs the FUS beam for vibration and mapping of tumors based on their distinct relative stiffness compared to the non-cancerous surrounding tissue. The use of animals is justified in order to be able to determine the effect of ablation and chemotherapy with both the safety and efficacy of the technique before clinical translation. HMIgFUS simultaneously monitors and induces thermal ablation without treatment interruption. In both methodologies, the same ultrasound beam simultaneously mechanically vibrates (with amplitude modulation (AM) at low power for diagnostic/localization purposes) and/or ablates (at high power for treatment purposes) the detected tumor. The team assembled encompasses expertise in ultrasound engineering, imaging, surgery, oncology, mouse tumor models and histopathological analysis. The techniques proposed herein stand to timely inform the current but also new therapies for breast cancer and ultimately lead to outpatient and efficient procedures for women with early-stage breast cancer. Project Number: 1R01CA301199-01A1 | Fiscal Year: 2026 | NIH Institute/Center: National Cancer Institute (NCI) | Principal Investigator: Elisa Konofagou (+1 co-PI) | Institution: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES, NEW YORK, NY | Award Amount: $594,297 | Activity Code: R01 | Study Section: Imaging Guided Interventions and Surgery Study Section[IGIS] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11306476