According to a study published, further testing using Breast-Specific Gamma Imaging (BSGI) detects additional cancer in the same or opposite breast for the women with recent breast cancer diagnosis. BSGI has detected additional or more extensive breast cancer in the same or opposite breast in 10.9 percent of newly diagnosed patients according to the study. BSGI is a molecular breast imaging technique, which is a follow-up to mammography that can see lesions independent of tissue density and discover early stage cancers. With this technique the patient receives a pharmaceutical tracing agent that is absorbed by all the cells in the body. Due to their increased rate of metabolic activity, cancerous cells in the breast absorb a greater amount of the tracing agent than normal, healthy cells and generally appear as "hot spots" on the BSGI image. The Dilon 6800 Gamma camera is a high-resolution, compact field-of-view gamma camera, optimized to perform BSGI. A retrospective review has been conducted by Johnson and her team from two Portland, Ore. community-based breast imaging centers of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients in whom BSGI was performed as part of the imaging work-up. Additional or more extensive malignancy is detected by BSGI in the same or opposite breast in 10.9 percent of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients. Only 7.2 percent incurred an additional work-up. The study concluded that BSGI provides accurate evaluation of remaining breast tissue in newly diagnosed breast cancer patients with few false-positive readings. BSGI has comparable sensitivity, but superior specificity when compared to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which leads to improved management of the newly diagnosed breast cancer patient. A total of 138 patients (69 invasive ductal carcinoma, 20 invasive lobular carcinoma, 32 ductal carcinoma in situ, and 17 mixtures of invasive ductal carcinoma, invasive lobular carcinoma, or ductal carcinoma in situ and other) were reviewed. Twenty-five patients (18.1%) had a positive BSGI study for cancer at a site other than their known cancer, or more extensive disease than was detected from previous imaging. Fifteen patients (10.9%) were positive for a synchronous or more extensive cancer in the same or opposite breast. Five patients had benign findings on pathology, five benign on ultrasound follow-up (false-positive rate, 7.2%). Findings converted seven patients to mastectomy, one patient to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and seven patients were found to have previously undetected contralateral cancer. The positive predictive value for BSGI was 92.9%.