AI imaging technology makes cancerous tissue glow

Thursday, February 20, 2025

Better detection and treatment of breast cancer are possible with new imaging technology developed by researchers at Waterloo Engineering.

The system leverages specific physical characteristics of breast tissue, such as density, and how the irregular packing of cells leads to differences in the way water molecules move in cancerous tissue compared to healthy tissue.

“This technology has great potential to not only improve breast cancer detection, but also treatment,” said Dr. Alexander Wong, a professor of systems design engineering and co-director of the Vision and Image Processing (VIP) Lab.

The new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was first applied to prostate cancer and has now been optimized using artificial intelligence (AI) to make cancerous tissue appear to light up or glow next to healthy breast tissue in images.

Go to Cancerous breast tissue glows in new AI-enhanced MRI images for the full story.