Scientists have developed new technology to spot breast cancer earlier and more accurately than ever before.

Oxford researchers claim their new screening technique could save more lives and mean less extensive surgery for women with the disease, because it can detect tiny lumps indistinguishable in present screening exam- inations.

About 123 women in Oxfordshire die of breast cancer every year and many more are diagnosed with the disease after having a mammogram, a special X-ray which screens women for lumps in their breasts.

News of the development, funded by the Cancer Research Campaign, comes during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The new system was developed by Oxford University engineer Prof Michael Brady and his team. It can detect lumps as small as 1mm in diameter - ten times smaller than those pinpointed on traditional mammograms.

Prof Brady said a lump in a normal examination would show up as a bright patch on a grainy background. But the patch could look different if the X-ray was taken on a different machine, or if different X-ray film is used, or even if a different radiographer takes the X-ray.

He said: "In other words, the exact size of that patch is a guess, and so is the size of the tumour it represents.

"We have found a way of eliminating all these variations and leaving only the interesting information - the size of a patch of dense breast tissue.

"By using our method, a bright patch will always look the same, and we can say exactly how much dense breast tissue is there, in millimetres rather than in levels of grey."

Women whose cancer is detected in an early stage have a more than 90 per cent chance of recovery and Prof Brady believes the new technique will help doctors to detect the early signs of breast cancer. The team is now launching a two-year trial of 500 women, at the Churchill Hospital, Headington, and the Royal Free Hospital, London, to test the new screening technology.

Woodstock deputy mayor and former breast cancer patient Mrs Gwen Mason, 56, applauded the new technology.

She said: "I had a lumpectomy and radiotherapy and was reasonably lucky because my cancer was quite slow growing and could have been there for a number of years without causing problems.