Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world. Early detection greatly improves the chances of successful treatment, and frequent screenings are especially important for people at high risk.
Now, researchers at MIT have developed a small, portable ultrasound system that could help make breast cancer screenings more frequent, accessible, and convenient.
The new system is made up of a small ultrasound probe that connects to a processing module about the size of a smartphone. When connected to a laptop, this device can produce 3D images of breast tissue in real time. Because of its compact size and lower cost, the device could be used in a doctor’s office or even at home.
Canan Dagdeviren, a professor at MIT, led the research. She explains that this smaller system could be especially helpful in rural or low-resource areas where access to traditional ultrasound equipment is limited. With this new technology, tumors might be found earlier, when they are easier to treat.
Mammograms are currently the most common method for finding breast tumors, but they are only done once a year. Tumors that grow between mammograms—called interval cancers—can be more aggressive.
Detecting these tumors early is vital. When breast cancer is found in its earliest stage, survival rates are nearly 100%. But if the cancer is caught later, survival drops significantly.
Some people may benefit from more frequent ultrasound checks, especially in addition to regular mammograms. However, traditional ultrasound machines are large, expensive, and require skilled technicians. These barriers make it difficult for people in remote or low-income areas to get frequent scans.
MIT’s team has been working on making ultrasound technology smaller and easier to use. In 2023, they developed a wearable patch with ultrasound sensors that could be attached to a bra.
Users could move a tracker over the patch to create images of the breast. However, those earlier systems had gaps in coverage and still required connection to large, expensive machines.
In their latest research, the MIT team created a fully portable device that can produce a full 3D image of the breast with just two or three scans. This new device includes a probe that’s smaller than a deck of cards and a processing board slightly larger than a smartphone.
Together, they form a chirped data acquisition system (cDAQ). All the electronic parts are low-cost and easy to find, and the whole system only costs about $300 to build. It can be powered using a basic 5V power source like a small battery.
The probe uses a square-shaped ultrasound array that allows it to scan deep—up to 15 centimeters—and generate high-quality 3D images of the entire breast. Unlike traditional ultrasound tools, it does not need to press into the skin, so the images remain accurate and undistorted.
The team tested the system on a 71-year-old woman with a history of breast cysts. The device successfully detected and imaged the cysts in full 3D with no missing areas. These early results show the technology’s strong potential.
MIT researchers are now running larger clinical trials to test the device more thoroughly. They are also working on making the system even smaller—down to the size of a fingernail—and plan to connect it to a smartphone.
Eventually, they hope to create a mobile app that uses artificial intelligence to guide users in placing the probe for the best imaging results.
While the current version is ideal for use in clinics or doctor’s offices, the goal is to make it wearable and user-friendly enough for people to use at home. This could be a major step forward for early breast cancer detection, especially for people at high risk or in places where medical access is limited.
If you care about breast cancer, please read studies about a major cause of deadly breast cancer, and this daily vitamin is critical to cancer prevention.
For more information about cancer, please see recent studies that new cancer treatment could reawaken the immune system, and results showing vitamin D can cut cancer death risk.
The study is published in Advanced Healthcare Materials.
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