Cancer is something that scientists have been trying to understand and treat for many decades, but even so the main issue for some of the most prominent cancers is the ability to screen for them in less time and with more frequency. This can’t be any truer for one of the most common forms of cancer, breast cancer, which currently is detectable with today’s technology, but still the main issue remains with everyone being able to get check for it. The case is either that they can’t get checked for it because they can’t afford it or they can’t get checked for it regularly enough before it develops. This is all about to change however, with a new form of technology that was developed by a University of Manchester professor that is highly portable and uses a completely different system as opposed to the current mammogram devices.
So, what is this new form of technology that has been developed? Well, to put it simply it is a portable mammogram screening device that uses radio frequency rather than x-ray to determine the presence of cancer within the breast. The current mammogram technology of today’s world uses x-ray to determine the presence of cancer within the breast and though the radiation produced from this isn’t anything to worry about the main concern with this system is its ability to detect cancer in younger patients. The current system is good for detecting cancer in women who are over fifty years old, but the issues arise when the system is used to detect cancer in patients that are significantly younger than that. This new piece of technology with the use of radio frequency will be able to detect breast cancer tumors that are either benign or malignant in real time, allowing for more accurate screening and detection over the previous system.
The device itself is very small and is just large enough for the breast itself and unlike the current system there is no need for any special gels or the output of a few images that doctors have to mill over to determine the presence of cancer to the best of their ability. The new device is able to use anything from oil to milk and it has the advantage over older x-ray based machines in that it can give doctors over thirty images per second and does so in real time allowing them to detect problems that they may otherwise have missed with the old system in place. This new form of technology will allow doctors to examine all tissue and be able to run effective and accurate scans on patients regardless of age. The fact that the machine being used is both highly portable and small paves the way for a more affordable mammogram and could allow for home use in the future. If patients can screen themselves at home and go to the doctor when they determine there is an issue, it could save in both time and money and allow for the earliest detection possible. This technology could help to save many more lives and upon more improvements, could be the most accurate machine to date.