3-D mammograms add new dimension.

Three-dimensional mammograms that could make screening for breast cancer more effective, less costly, and potentially less painful to women than current methods are being developed at Purdue University. In a recent study, researchers found test subjects were able to detect abnormalities better when viewing a computer-simulated breast X-ray presented in a three-dimensional, or stereo, format than they were when viewing two ordinary two-dimensional images side by side.

"Stereo imaging is going to be the way radiology is done in the 21st century," predicts Charles F. Babbs, a researcher with Purdue's Hillenbrand Biomedical Engineering Center. "Stereomammography in particular is an improved screening technology that should aid early breast cancer detection, which is a highly effective means to diminish breast cancer mortality."

The impression of depth is created when an observer wearing special 3-D glasses views a computer display of two X-ray images taken from two different perspectives. The images appear one at a time, but flicker imperceptibly 144 times a second. The computer display is connected to an infrared device, similar to a television remote control, that sends signals to liquid crystal shutters in the 3-D glasses. The left and right shutters open and close in synchrony with the computer display, 144 times a second, so that each eye receives only one...