Breast screening may soon be possible using 3D x-rays that deliver just 4% of the radiation of current mammography, scientists reported last night.
The breakthrough would allow massively improved accuracy in screening programmes.
It would also help allay fears that screening may do as much harm as good – as it requires women to face regular doses of x-rays.
The research was undertaken at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France.
The new technique uses high energy x-rays and phase contrast imaging together with some novel mathematics to create an algorithm known as equally sloped tomography.
The researchers say the 3D images are of higher resolution than ever before.
Radiologists at the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany, were used to rate the images and confirmed their sharpness and contrast was better than other 3D techniques.
The findings were reported last night in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Professor Maximilian Reiser, a radiologist at the Ludwig Maximilians University, said: "This new technique can open up the doors to the clinical use of computed tomography in the breast diagnosis, which would be a powerful tool to fight even better and earlier against breast cancer."
ESRF researcher Alberto Bravin said: "This result has been obtained thanks to the synergy of the expertise by researchers from very different disciplines. These high-quality X-ray CT images at high energies are the result of a ten-year effort at the ESRF."
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