Breast CT is much more comfortable for women than mammography — and may be better at detecting breast abnormalities.

UC Davis researchers reported these preliminary results from an ongoing Phase II trial of the new technology at the 2005 annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago in December. The trial will enroll about 190 patients in all.

Unlike mammography, which takes two X-ray views of each breast, breast CT yields about 300 images per breast. In addition, breast CT requires no breast compression. The breast CT was developed at UC Davis with funding from the California Breast Cancer Research Program, the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.