THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Breast screening remains the key to early detection of breast cancers, one of the common cancers found among women. Revolutionizing the very concept, a group of scientists from the Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (CMET) Thrissur Laboratory which comes under the central ministry of communications and IT, is giving finishing touches to a wearable device designed like a bra that could develop three-dimensional images of the breast.
It is learnt that the device, which is expected to be finalized within six months, will help identify precancerous or cancerous cells more than the two-dimensional image reading device developed earlier by the CMET.
“CMET is now in the process of developing a High Accuracy Data Acquisition Device for Breast Cancer Detection which could generate 3D images. With this, the depth of invasion, location of cancer, its size and the blood perfusion rate of tissues could be ascertained with better clarity,” said A Seema, scientist, CMET.
Earlier, Seema along with her colleagues had developed a device that could generate two-dimensional images of the breast. A thermal sensor-based monitoring system, it uses skin surface temperature measurement method for the initial screening of women before referring them for mammography.
The system that consists of a body-worn device with thermistors and a data acquisition device, is touted to detect breast cancer at a very early stage. “The technology transfer of the device has been completed. It has been provided to Murata Business Engineering (India) Private Limited. The commercial production of the 2D imaging device will be based on clinical trials,” added Seema.