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Canan Dagdeviren creates a wearable ultrasound scanner could detect breast cancer earlier.

Shared by Joana Santos Afonso on 2023-08-02 21:44

About the solution

MIT researchers have developed a wearable ultrasound device to detect breast cancer in its early stages, aiming to improve the survival rate for patients. The survival rate for breast cancer is nearly 100 percent when detected early, but it drops to around 25 percent for later-stage tumors.
The device is a flexible patch attached to a bra, allowing the wearer to move an ultrasound tracker along the patch and image the breast tissue from different angles. This innovative technology provides real-time, user-friendly monitoring of breast tissue. The researchers designed a miniaturized ultrasound scanner based on existing medical technology, incorporating a novel piezoelectric material to make it wearable.Breast tumors that develop between routine mammograms, known as interval cancers, are more aggressive and account for 20 to 30 percent of all breast cancer cases. The wearable ultrasound device targets individuals at high risk of developing interval cancer, with the goal of increasing the survival rate to up to 98 percent through more frequent screening.The researchers conducted tests on a human subject and successfully detected small cysts equivalent in size to early-stage tumors. The ultrasound resolution achieved with this device is comparable to traditional methods, enabling imaging of breast tissue up to 8 centimeters deep.
Funding for this research came from various sources, including the National Science Foundation, 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, Sagol Weizmann-MIT Bridge Program, and MIT Media Lab Consortium Funding. The technology exhibits great promise in enhancing early breast cancer detection, providing a more reliable, comfortable, and accessible diagnostic option. This project holds a personal significance to Canan Dagdeviren, as she drew inspiration from her late aunt, Fatma Caliskanoglu, who faced a late-stage breast cancer diagnosis despite regular screenings. At her aunt's bedside, Dagdeviren, then a postdoc at MIT, sketched a rough schematic of a diagnostic device that could be integrated into a bra, facilitating more frequent screening for high-risk individuals. The memory of her aunt's experience fueled her determination to pursue this innovative approach to breast cancer detection and potentially improve outcomes for patients.

More information at: https://news.mit.edu/2023/wearable-ultrasound-scanner-breast-cancer-0728...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn-cgYAnAGs

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About the author

For this project, Dagdeviren drew inspiration from her late aunt, Fatma Caliskanoglu, who was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer at age 49, despite having regular cancer screens, and passed away six months later. At her aunt’s bedside, Dagdeviren, then a postdoc at MIT, drew up a rough schematic of a diagnostic device that could be incorporated into a bra and would allow for more frequent screening of individuals at high risk for breast cancer.