A team of Japanese researchers has developed a semi-electronic glove capable of detecting breast abnormalities.
Detect a breast abnormality using an ultra-sensitive glove, even more efficient than a human hand? This should soon be possible thanks to a major technological advance that could revolutionize breast cancer screening.
A team of Japanese and American researchers has indeed announced that they have designed a sensitive and very flexible material capable of detecting a breast abnormality by simple palpation. In practice, this semi-electronic material based on carbon nanotubes can form a very thin glove capable of accurately measuring pressure variations.
144 pressure points assessed
The 4.8 cm square prototype thus makes it possible to assess the pressure at 144 points simultaneously. “We tested the performance of our sensor with an artificial blood vessel and thus verified that it could measure small variations in pressure”, explain researchers from the University of Tokyo, who publish their work on the website of the british review Nature Nanotechnology.
This synthetic membrane is originally transparent. When assembled with the transistors, organic switches, and circuits, the whole looks like a sheet of gold metal, ranging in thickness from 3.4 to 8 micrometers (millionths of a meter).
2016 Someya Laboratory
Help the doctors
This innovation must still gain in durability and be tested on biological vessels in order to become usable in a medical environment. However, it could result in an extremely useful tool for practitioners. “The sensitive fingers of an experienced doctor are capable of detecting a small tumor, but what they feel cannot be measured” nor quantified into digital data that can then be shared, the researchers say.
Moreover, this device would make it possible to compensate for the lack of experience or training in palpation of young doctors. “In the future we could thus record and make tangible certain sensations which can only be felt by an experienced practitioner”.
#Cancer breast: This ultra-sensitive glove could greatly improve the screening https://t.co/4V7yXsBvP7 #health pic.twitter.com/svVjo4T9Oa
– Pourquoidocteur (@Pourquoidocteur) January 26, 2016
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