'Electronic skin' could revolutionize breast cancer detection

A group of scientists are currently working on the development of an "electronic skin" that has the capacity to detect - or "feel" - and produce images of small lumps in breast tissue that the practiced fingers of a clinician could miss.

The new technology could lead to improving cancer survival rates by over 94% if it can successfully detect lumps and accurately determine their shape when they are less than 10 millimeters in length, Medical News Today reported.

The thin-film tactile device is being developed by Chieu Van Nguyen and Ravi F. Saraf from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and they describe both the device and its preliminary testing within the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Early detection of breast cancer is key to a positive prognosis, as it allows health care professionals to deal with invasive lumps before they can spread to neighboring tissue and throughout the body.

The device is made from nanoparticles and polymers and can image palpable features within breast tissue. The scientists have formulated the device so that it operates with an optimum level of sensitivity so as to provide quality imaging while not requiring a level of pressure that would create discomfort.

In order to test their "electronic skin" to see how it might work with a human patient, the scientists positioned lump-like objects within a piece of silicone to simulate breast tissue. They then applied the device to their model with the same level of pressure that a clinician would use in a CBE.

During this testing, the device was able to successfully identify lumps as small as 5 mm and as deep within the silicone as 20 mm (three times the thickness of the mass itself) - measurements that would typically be very difficult to detect for even an experienced clinician.

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