By Elizabeth Chorney-Booth | Photograph: Jared Sych
Calgary pilot project looks to reinvent how breast cancer tumours are marked for surgery, making it safer, more precise, and less invasive.
In the world of cancer care and research, Dr. May Lynn Quan is a superstar. As Medical Director of the Calgary Breast Health Program, Scientific Director of SPHERE (Strategies for Precision Health in Breast Cancer), General Surgery Site Lead at the Foothills Medical Centre, and Professor in the University of Calgary Department of Oncology, Dr. Quan has dedicated her career to breast cancer.
The common thread running through Quan’s work is her determination to make breast cancer care as comfortable and effective as possible. To that end, Quan is currently involved in the new Sentimag pilot project co-funded by Calgary Health Foundation and Alberta Cancer Foundation that is set to revolutionize the way women in Calgary experience breast-preserving cancer surgery.
Pinpointing mammogram-detected tumours — which are too small to locate through manual examination before surgery — can be a difficult process when a surgeon’s wish is to preserve a patient’s breast.
Traditionally, on the morning of surgery, a patient visits an imaging facility where a radiologist inserts an uncomfortable hook next to the tumour. The hook is attached to a wire that protrudes from the breast. The patient then must travel to a surgical centre within two hours of the implantation to have the tumour removed, sometimes located across the city, without accidentally moving the hook.
“Hook wires have been the standard for decades,” Quan says. “The good news is we have made progress and have other ways to identify these lesions.”
For the last five years, Quan has pivoted to implanting radioactive seeds to mark these small tumours. Read with a Geiger counter, these seeds eliminate the invasiveness of the hook wire and the stress associated with travel. But they have their own drawbacks, mainly associated with the dangers of radioactivity.
The new Sentimag pilot uses a product called Magseed, which, like the radioactive seeds, involves placing a metallic marker resembling a grain of rice at the tumour site. Unlike the radioactive version, Magseed allows surgeons to magnetically locate the marker and, therefore, the tumour, without using radioactivity. This means the seeds can sit safely and indefinitely in the breast without risk of dislodging or pain, allowing for less urgent and complicated scheduling, and fewer imaging appointments.
The three-year pilot will allow patients who would have previously been given a hook wire to be fitted with magnetic markers instead. Quan hopes the pilot will irrefutably prove the benefits of magnetic localization so they become the standard of care throughout the province.
“This technology allows us to be efficient with our healthcare resources to improve the patient journey,” she says. “We’re very excited about the funding to bring it to Calgarians and to provide data for the rest of the province so that we can hopefully bring it to women across Alberta.”
