Spy
Satellite Processing Helps
Combat
Breast Cancer
13 September 1996
Washington, D.C. -- Doctors and medical technicians,
in their battle against breast cancer, can now
employ
tools used by intelligence analysts.
The tools involve advanced imagery processing
and display
techniques used in reviewing images gathered
by spy satellites.
The technology was developed by the National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which is responsible
for designing,
building, and operating U.S. reconnaissance
satellites. The NRO is
a member off the Intelligence Community,
consisting of 13 Defense
and independent agencies who gather and
analyze intelligence.
The techniques align satellite images of the same
target area. Analysts use them to detect changes
in facilities, roads,
weapons, sites, and other areas of interest.
The images, like photos
or x-rays, are aligned and then digitally analyzed.
This process allows
imagery analysts to determine differences
or changes in the
location under surveillance.
Radiologists have a similar "needle-in-the-haystack"
problem -- trying to find very small cancers
in mammograms. The
medical community has combined its own
Computer Assisted
Diagnosis (CAD) tools with intelligence technology,
resulting in
significant improvement in detecting tumors
and reducing the
false-alarm rate. This development should help
accelerate the
clinical acceptance and use of these computerized
tools, which will
help catch cancers earlier and potentially save
lives.
Through the U.S. Intelligence Community, the NRO
is
working with the Department of Health and Human
Services, under
the leadership of Dr. Susan J. Blumenthal,
Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Health (Women's Health), to expedite
the
transfer of this technology to the medical
community. The
National Information Display Lab (NIDL)
is facilitating the
transfer and broadening the search
for other intelligence tools that
could benefit the medical community. The
NIDL is sponsored by
the NRO and is chartered to support
the Intelligence Community
as a whole.
