A hand-held device developed by the U.S. Department of Defense has a 90 percent accuracy rate in finding abnormalities and malignancies in women’s breasts.
The device is about the size of a pager and uses two infrared lights to measure changes in blood flow and oxygen that can be early signs of a breast tumor. It sounds an alarm if an abnormality is found.
“The preliminary data are very good,” Dennis Slamon of the University of California’s Jonsson Cancer Center at Los Angeles told ABC News.
“The ability to determine an abnormality is in excess of 90 percent. And the specificity, the ability to be specific to a malignancy, is greater than 90 percent,” Slamon said.
Researchers, which include Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania, said the breast exam device could be available to the public in a couple years once testing is completed.
Scientists said the hand-held detector could supplement but not replace self-exams.
