Firm adapts Navy technology to fight breast cancer

In its previous form, it was used to detect undersea mines. But through the work of Providence-based Advanced Image Enhancement Inc., the technology may now help protect women from the threat of breast cancer.

Founded by CEO Michael Duarte, AIE has developed software to enhance mammograms using technology first employed at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport. The company also has plans to adapt the technology for other uses.

The software enhances digital images, allowing for small objects to be found even in complex textures. Applied to mammography, it makes once-blurry details clear, for more accurate cancer detection.

AIE has begun integrating its software into the digital radiology work of Hologic, a developer and manufacturer of medical imaging systems, and Hologic is partnering with AIE to commercialize the software, Duarte said.

The six-year-old software firm has applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the right to market the product and hopes to make the software available by late 2007, he said.

After the project is initially available for use with Hologic’s radiology work, Duarte said, AIE could look for other uses for the software, including oral surgeries, chest X-rays and the detection of hairline fractures.

The idea for the company came in 1995. Under the Clinton administration, there was a push for government laboratories to find commercial sector uses for technology they had created, and thus foster economic development. Duarte, who works for NUWC and has doctors in his family, decided to look for medical uses for Navy technologies.

Through meetings with doctors, Duarte was convinced that the undersea mine detection technology could be used for breast cancer detection.

The company was formed in 2000 and work began to leverage the technologies’ capabilities, Duarte said.

A recent survey released by the firm shows that radiologists are pleased with the software, Duarte said. In a survey of six radiologists at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and Faulkner Hospital – all in Massachusetts – the radiologists said the company’s software gave them between 20 and 70 percent more confidence in their findings.

Radiologists also rated the software superior for improving details of calcifications – small deposits of calcium in tissue seen on mammograms that can be associated with cancer – in 88 percent of the cases studied.

“A lot of times when doctors have a pretty decent opinion on what they’re seeing, they’ll go through additional measures,” Duarte said. “The doctors all felt that giving them an advanced image gave them more confidence. … We couldn’t have asked for a better result.”

Dr. Alan Semine, medical director of The Auerbach Breast Center and chief of breast imaging at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, said the company’s software helps with early detection of breast cancer and with the 10 to 20 percent of cancers that are not visible on mammograms.

“When you are looking at an image of that sort … some of the details can be very small and very subtle,” said Semine, who has collaborated with AIE. “This technology helps bring out details that may be difficult to appreciate.”

The results may bolster the case for more imaging facilities to switch from film to digital mammography, despite the digital equipment’s high cost (hundreds of thousands of dollars).

A national study released last year by the American College of Radiology Imaging Network found that while for most women, film and digital mammograms were about equally accurate, for younger women and those with dense breast tissue, digital imaging could detect up to 28 percent more cancers.

Semine said because that study was conducted over the course of years, its results did not reflect the impact of some of the newer technologies available. Those advances, including AIE’s software, represent a “leap forward” for digital mammography, Semine said.

Local support for AIE has been provided by the Slater Technology Fund and the Cherrystone Angel Group, both of which have made significant financial investments.

Thorne Sparkman, managing director of the Slater Fund, said the fund has invested in AIE four times, for a total of $160,000, and provided space in its incubator in Providence. According to Sparkman, the company has the chance to expand as the radiology changes from a film-based technology to a digital one.

“If this company reaches its potential, it will grow with the wave of digital radiology,” Sparkman said.