Breast cancer is fast emerging as one of the leading public health risks for women in India. More and more women in India are being diagnosed with breast cancer in their late 20s, early 30s and 40s – far earlier than expected.
In India, the care and treatment available is top of the line, but early detection is still key to a good outcome. Sadly, there is little public awareness of this disease because for better or worse, breasts are still a taboo subject.
Women are either unaware, afraid or embarrassed to get themselves screened, resulting in the disease often being discovered at a stage when treatment options are more limited.
These factors inspired a group of scientists from Kerala to invent a wearable bra that could help detect cancerous cells in breasts.
A team from Thrissur branch of Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET), led by Dr A Seema as its Chief Investigating Officer, invented the wearable device which is equipped with sensors and uses thermal imaging to detect cancerous cells.
Dr A Seema was recently awarded the prestigious Nari Shakti Puraskar by the President of India for this pathbreaking device.
In an interview to The Better India (TBI), Dr Seema explained how the idea for such a device came into being.
The idea took root when the director of Malabar Cancer Centre (Kannur) visited us sometime in 2014. They’ve been our medical partners in this project. They broached the idea of working out ways of breast cancer detection on a community scale. Mammogram was the golden standard but the provision wasn’t available in even Primary Health Centres across the country. What they had in mind was a portable device that could be implemented at a community level. This propelled us to conceptualise a wearable device for detection through thermal imaging.
Dr Seema said that the device was safe, didn’t emit any radiation and very different from the regular mammogram as the person wearing the device would not feel any pain.
The device is portable so it can easily carried out during field visits. There are no age-restrictions as well.
Even girls as young as 15 or 20 years of age can use the wearable device which caters to all body types. This is not possible in the case with the mammogram, as only women above 40 can undertake the screening. We have resolved that issue as well.
The cost of the device is expected to be between Rs 400-500 and the cost may further decrease once the production amps up.
Breast cancer is serious and potentially life threatening if not caught and treated early. Such devices are a great step towards fighting against this deadly disease.
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