Disclaimer: I am a woman’s health advocate and investigative journalist. I am not a medical doctor and this information is not medical advice. Much of it falls outside of radiology and surgical oncology guidelines, recommendations, and “standard of care.” *Please consult your own health practitioners (hopefully including integrative, functional or naturopathic!) and do further research. Think of this page as a starting point. Every person is different and what is right for one is not right for everyone. – Donna Pinto, Founder, DCIS 411

An On-going Investigation of Breast Imaging

My investigation began in 2010 after a diagnosis of DCIS, a non-invasive breast condition I had never heard of. I discovered important information that was not readily available to the public or women searching for better answers. I felt compelled to share it through a website and in online groups.

Fast forward 14 years. More and more women have become educated about the limitations and harms of breast cancer screening, and there is now a collective desire for safer, more accurate, pain-free breast imaging options.

Two technologies have stood out recently with great interest — ABUS and QT Imaging.

Could these technologies combined be the solution to the many problems with mammography screening (often not disclosed) to women such as overdiagnosis and underdiagnosis (missed invasive cancers)???

Please review this article and consider signing the petition at link below:

INFORMED CHOICE in Breast Cancer Screening / Insurance for Ultrasound and QT Imaging

ABUS (Automated Breast Ultrasound) and 2nd Opinion Reviews

“Invenia’s Automated 3D Breast Ultrasound (ABUS 2.0) with Qview CAD technology is designed to improve the detection of breast cancer in women with dense breast tissue, which can be difficult to detect with traditional mammography.”

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

Dr. Meghna Krishnan is a breast imaging fellowship trained, American Board of Radiology certified radiologist. She provides second opinion breast imaging interpretation reads for USA and international residents. This includes 2D and 3D mammogram, breast Ultrasound and breast MRI exams, including post cryoablation follow up second opinion reads. 

THE POWER OF A 2ND IMAGING OPINION

Our stories are powerful. Thank you to my friend Suzan for sharing how a false positive affected her and set her on a path of investigation which led her to a 2nd opinion review with Dr. Meghna Krishnan.

MAYA’S 2ND OPINION TESTIMONIAL

I live in an area where just an ultrasound isn’t offered without a mammogram. Though I have dense breasts, the docs always tell me 3D mammogram is pretty good, when they do an ultrasound it’s a quick process when the mammogram comes out normal.

I became my own advocate after a traumatic experience five and a half years ago with a mammogram that led to biopsy and eventually lumpectomy for a small lesion. After this surgery, I continued to have mammograms, and then I’d request an ultrasound for having dense breasts. I was dismissed because the 3D would show normal mammograms and if I requested it they’d do it very quickly. Discouraged I started going to HerScan yearly and this year they saw a possibility of abnormally mass like structure. One of my really good friends suggested I’d get a second opinion before I go back to my doctor.

Dr. Krishnan is my angel, who was absolutely so kind. I felt as if I was talking to a friend and there was never a time where she did not answer my messages. I wish every single radiologist and doctors would have the compassion and understanding of how traumatic this can be for so many women. I just want to be able to live a healthy life with someone to guide me to do what needs to be done, not put fear in me! So much so that I will be flying down to Arizona for her to do my future ultrasounds. She is so calm, friendly and warm! I don’t think I have enough words to say thank you. I kinda knew my ultrasound images were left over scars from the lumpectomy, but there is always that fear it may not be and I had made up my mind after speaking to Dr. Krishnan that I would follow her advice with whatever comes of this. This is how confident I felt after my first phone call for the second opinion and now my husband wants to make sure we do our yearly breast check ups with only Dr. Krishnan. Thank you for everything! In the hardest times you want your doctor to make you feel safe, and I felt I was safe no matter the outcome. I was beyond impressed how quickly everything was done!

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON 2ND OPINION REVIEW

QT IMAGING

The QT Imaging website states:

• FDA-cleared, safe, and noninvasive
• No compression
• No radiation

Have a listen to Dr. Klock, the CEO and Founder of QT Imaging in the videos below:

What makes this technology different?

“Conventional breast imaging modalities, such as mammography, face tremendous challenges when imaging dense breast tissue, which puts women with dense breasts – nearly half the female population – at an immediate disadvantage. This is because cancer can appear similar to regular breast tissue and if there is a lot of breast tissue (such as in the case of dense breasts), the cancer can ‘hide.’

Our QT technology has the ability to image through dense breasts, and our ongoing clinical trials aim to confirm how the QTscan can effectively detect suspicious regions. Our case studies show high contrast breast images with no injections and no radiation.” – The dense breast challenge

Is QT an alternative to mammography?

“The company is not allowed to say that it’s a replacement for a mammogram at this time, but women can certainly make that choice and self refer.” – Dr. John Lock (1st video above min 23)

See comparison studies with other imaging posted on QT website here.

Where can I find a QT scan?

Available currently at a few locations here.

QT Imaging was Dr. Susan Love’s vision for better, safer, more accurate imaging. Read posts written by the CEO of the Susan Love Research Foundation in 2023

Sadly Dr. Susan Love passed away in July 2023. In less than a year after her death, the Beverly Hills QT Imaging Center her Foundation was affiliated with closed.

Concerns About QT IMAGING

Posted in Online DCIS Support Group: I wanted to share some info on QT Imaging I got from my radiologist who has her own private practice. She said the radiologist on the QT studies dropped out of conducting the studies as the QT machine was missing what it should have been picking up and wasn’t hitting the industry benchmarks that are standard/required. She also looked into the QT team and saw that the original radiologist working on the device is no longer a part of the team. She told me she has been getting lots of questions about the QT device and has even heard of a patient flying from the east coast to get it done. However when looking at the reports from QT, none of them were signed by a radiologist. She finds it somewhat concerning being that radiologist go to school for years to be able to learn how to read imaging and yet in this instance there wasn’t a radiologist reviewing the results. So like a lot of you I was excited about the QT machine but I don’t think it’s what we need it to be……

I emailed the company about this concern and I received an email back from Dr. John Klock, CEO of QT IMAGING. I am copying his reply below:

Thanks for your interest.  A few things to know at the beginning:

THE TECHNOLOGY 

QT is the highest resolution medical imaging ever developed.  It is 40x the resolution and 5X contrast to noise ratio of 3T MRI and it is the only high-resolution “isotropic” imaging modality in the world. 

QT also has the only FDA-cleared modality to follow (quantify) calcifications in DCIS.

RADIOLOGIST’S COMMENTS IN SOCIAL MEDIA 

Regarding radiologists in the studies: 

1. We have two peer-reviewed , blinded controlled studies showing QT has higher sensitivity and specificity and reduced call backs when compared to FFDM (study 1) and DBT (Study 2).  I am happy to provide these. 
2. Not all the radiologists trained in these trials were breast radiologists, and some did “fail” the training.  Also the best training takes a lot longer than one afternoon (used for the studies).  When we train radiologists outside of these studies, we expect them to read 500 cases! 
3. We are looking for radiologists to train, but in the U.S. more than 75% of them work for “corporations” and are restricted from outside reading, so we are slowly recruiting new readers. The radiologists we have worked with who have been thoroughly trained are doing well.
4. Many radiologists are very biased and have expressed their biases on social media:  “This will never replace screening mammography” or “you will never be better than breast MRI – the gold standard”.  These comments are clearly very strong feelings.  This bias will not be easily remedied – even though any radiologist who uses QT will see that it has much higher sensitivity and specificity than mammography, HHUS or MRI. 

QT READER QUALIFICATIONS 

I agree that – if we had a choice – we should be using fellowship-trained breast radiologists, but there is such a strong negative bias by this group, this will take time.  Please take an un-biased look at the technology – not ignoring its advantages,  e.g. dense breast mammograms miss over 85% of the QT findings!! 

Regarding the QT readers, I understand your concern about not having “breast radiologists” reading the studies, but as I mentioned above, it has been hard to overcome the bias out there.  As the inventor of this technology, and having run my own imaging center for 10 years, and having read over 15,000 of these studies I am more than qualified, and I over-read all the other non-radiologist physicians doing reading.  Furthermore, neither the FDA nor any regulatory agency requires any certification or MQSA/ACR validation for reading these scans.  The very high resolution and anatomic accuracy (all validated by published studies) make the reading intuitive. 

QT VALIDATION BY THE INDUSTRY 

Canon Medical Systems has done extensive due diligence, including multiple KOLs visiting QT.  As a result, they are impressed with the QT technology and we have signed 3 agreements with Canon Medical Systems – who will manufacture and market the QT Breast scanner world-wide.  They are now selling the QT Breast Scanner in the U.S. 

In summary, you can refuse to use the best breast imaging modality ever developed and refuse to endorse the best imaging modality for detecting, determining advancing, and determining responses to treatment for DCIS, but please at least investigate it for yourself.  Also we have done a 500 women Patient Reported Outcome study for the FDA and women overwhelmingly prefer (over 95%) QT over mammography –  please also consider this.

John Klock, MD 

CEO and CMO QT Imaging Inc 

PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS, COMMENTS, QUESTIONS

Let’s help each other stay informed by sharing our experiences and insights you may have with QT imaging, ABUS, or 2nd Opinion Reviews with Dr. Krishnan or other radiologists. Please reply/comment in the section at the bottom of this blog post.

Please consider signing the petition at link below:

INFORMED CHOICE in Breast Cancer Screening / Insurance for Ultrasound and QT Imaging