Study to Show if Machine Can Find Lymph Node Cancer

A five-year, $4.3-million study of hundreds of women with breast cancer should show whether a high-tech scanning machine can safely replace painful lymph node surgery for women with breast cancer.

The medical centers at the University of Michigan, Duke and Washington universities will conduct the studies. Researchers hope the positron emission tomography, or PET scan, will prove to be at least as reliable as dissection in finding cancer cells in lymph nodes.

Cancer commonly spreads from the breast to the lymph nodes, and doctors treating breast cancer check the nodes for signs of cancer.

Smaller trials have found that the PET scan can be used to find cancers. The National Cancer Institute has given researchers at the three university medical centers a $4.3-million grant for a five-year trial of more than 400 women.