Mixed Feelings Rise Over Cancer-detecting Bras

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020, or nearly one in six deaths, the WHO stated.

Also, estimates from the International Agency for Research on Cancer said that in 2018 there were 17 million new cancer cases and 9.5 million cancer deaths worldwide, adding that by 2040, the global burden is expected to grow to 27.5 million new cancer cases and 16.3 million cancer deaths simply due to the growth and ageing of the population.

The most common cancers are breast, lung, colon and rectum and prostate. The most common in 2020 in terms of new cases of cancer were breast, with 2.26 million cases; lung, 2.21 million cases; colon and rectum, 1.93 million cases; prostate, 1.41 million cases; skin, non-melanoma, 1.20 million cases; and stomach, 1.09 million cases.

In Nigeria, however, about 70,000 (28,414 males and 41,913 females) cancer deaths occur annually, and 102,000 new cases are diagnosed from its population of about 200 million people. These are, however, estimates.

Meanwhile, the Centre for Disease Control in the United States pointed out that breast cancer is characterised by the abnormal growth of cells in the breast and the most common malignant disorder affecting women. Globally, the mortality rate as a result of breast cancer is about 685,000 and about 18,000 deaths in Nigeria, a report by a cancer awareness organisation, projectpinkblue.org, stated.

Over the years, experts have maintained that early detection is one of the ways to prevent mortality in cancer patients.

Interestingly, there have been various innovations in cancer treatment, from chemotherapy to mammography, radiotherapy, immunotherapy and the likes. The most recent have been cancer-detecting innovations.

The Chief Executive Officer of Siemens Healthineers, Bernd Montag, said the global cancer burden is rising, especially in low and medium-income centres. The facts are evident, now we need to prepare for the future.

To fight cancer, we need to detect and treat it as early and precisely as possible. Innovations such as low-dose CT-enabled national lung cancer screening programmes can help reduce mortality rates.

He added that technology was crucial. With rapidly increasing medical evidence coupled with a decreasing supply of medical experts, digitalisation can bridge the gap with patients. We have had good experiences, for example with telemedicine for COVID-19 patients and with AI-based assistants that support doctors in making decisions. These experiences are transferable to the care of cancer patients.

Also, the CEO/Founder of Earli, Cyriac Roeding, said the world had made major progress in cancer treatment options in the previous decades, from immunotherapies to gene therapy. Yet, the single biggest lever in saving lives lies in early cancer detection.

The five-year survival rates for the top five cancers are four to 13 times higher at stage one versus stage four, depending on the type of cancer.

Roeding said,

“We must get better at screening and diagnosing earlier. Fortunately, three radical innovations are emerging: liquid biopsies find cancer signals in blood samples; AI analyses body scans in places where top imaging experts are not available; and synthetic biopsies flip the whole concept of detection on its head.

Instead of searching for cancer, the cancer is being forced to reveal, locate and eventually kill itself using synthetic biology. I am optimistic that in 2122, we will look back at 2022 and say that was when critical early detection technologies really emerged.”

Corroborating others, a Consultant General Surgeon Dr. Arinzechukwu Mosanya, stressed that early detection in the treatment of breast cancer was very important in its treatment.

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He said,

“Breast cancer is more common in older females than in young females. The older a woman gets, the higher the chances of developing breast cancer. A lifestyle that is not healthy can also predispose women to cancer.

The most common symptom that a woman will have is swelling, commonly referred to as a breast lump. But that doesn’t mean that all lumps are breast cancer; once a woman notices a lump in the breast, she should see a physician who would guide her through the process of evaluating the lump to know if it is breast cancer or not.

Breast cancer is from stage zero to four. Stage zero is when breast cancer is confined to individual cells in the breast. Usually, these are detected in women who go for screening, as there may not be any visible or palpable lump. Stage four breast cancer refers to breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body with very poor prognosis and outcome.

Breast cancer is a disease that doesn’t kill especially if it is discovered early and that is why we do say that early detection saves lives. This is the reason we are coming together again to tell you that there is hope.”

He stressed the need for women to go for regular medical checkups, breast self-examination, clinical examination and mammography in a bid to detect the disease at an early stage.

In a recent development in the fight against breast cancer, some innovators have developed certain bras to help with early detection of breast cancer.

One of the popular brands is Eva bra made by Julian Rios Cantu and his three friends which they said would be an early warning system for breast cancer symptoms.

They explained that cancerous tumours may trigger a different temperature due to increased blood flow. The idea of the Eva bra is that biosensors would measure temperatures, log them in an app and alert a user to any disturbing changes. Women using the bra would need to wear it for 60-90 minutes a week to get accurate measurements.

Also, students from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland, teamed up with the startup, IcosaMed, to develop the SmartBra that can be used for cancer detection.

One of the students on the development team, Hugo Vuillet, in an interview said the smart-clothing technology was designed to detect cancer at the earliest stages. He said:

“It uses a non-invasive, painless method based on frequent ultrasound monitoring.”

He added that the development took more than two years with an investment of ‘several million pesos’ (the monetary unit of several countries in the Americas and the Philippines) received through various grants.

He said recovering the investment was not the goal in this first stage, but gathering more data to improve detection of algorithms for different pathologies.

Rios Cantu said Eva had many strategic partners ranging from enterprises to associations, to private hospitals and to public agencies such as the Mexican Institute of Social Security.

The students came up with their design during a Master’s-level class, called Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Engineering, which was run for the first time last fall.

The class is given jointly by the School of Engineering and the College of Management of Technology and aims to expose students to the challenges entrepreneurs face as they develop new products. Student teams worked closely with local businesses to develop a marketable product that meets a need identified by the company they teamed up with.

The SmartBra student team composed of Vuillet as well as Fatemeh Ghadamieh, Samet Hana and Jules Pochon – obtained the highest score and received an award from a selection panel made up of EPFL professors. Their system proved so effective that the company they worked with, IcosaMed, a Neuchâtel-based startup founded in March 2019, decided to continue the partnership.

IcosaMed’s technology emits ultrasound waves – like those employed in high-intensity focused ultrasound and low-intensity pulsed ultrasound – to perform echography scans for potentially cancerous cells.

The ultrasound waves are generated using piezoelectric sensors, which are devices that run on energy generated when pressure is applied to a piezoelectric material.

Vuillet said:

“This technology is what allows us to miniaturise the SmartBra’s detection system so that it’s still comfortable to wear and nearly imperceptible.”

Outside of the Eva and smart bras, there have been other innovations that were invented to help the cancer battle but the most recent is another smart bra invented by a Nigerian woman, Kemisola Bolarinwa.

Bolarinwa, a robotic and embedded systems engineer, invented a smart bra capable of detecting breast cancer in its early stage.

She told BBC News Pidgin that she was inspired to come up with such an innovation after losing her aunt to breast cancer in 2017.

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She said,

“In 2021, I was able to do a test run on a prototype of the smart bra. The bra has small sensors coupled with its nanotechnology that doesn’t cause harm to the body tissues.

This bra doesn’t replace normal bra or is worn throughout the day. This particular bra is worn during the breast cancer check which doesn’t last more than five minutes.”

Some oncologists have lauded the innovations, saying it would help in the fight against cancer since early detection is one of the quickest ways to combat the disease.

An oncologist, Dr. Kehinde Ololade, said two of those bras had been witnessed in recent times; the first being the Eva bra and the other one that uses light sensors.

He said,

“I am aware that one uses light and the Eva bra reads via blood tissues. It is a welcome innovation when it’s out it can only test the tissues.

So far, those bras are not known to have passed through any clinical test; they are just experiments. But we would continue to encourage them in order for science and technology to help come up with innovations that will help fight cancer while a little more work should be done.”

He added,

“We could have accelerated trial just like we had for COVID-19, or they could come up with one that has a little longer period.”

He explained that the one that relies on increased blood flow in the breast has its shortcoming because other activities in the body could cause increased blood flow.

He stated,

“If there is increased activity in the breast whether as a result of lactation or excitement and there is an increased blood flow in the breast, the bra that checks with blood flows will present such activities as cancer.

Whenever there is a lump in the breast, there is usually an increased activity of blood flow in that part of the breast, so it is the same way the sensors in the bra would read those activities.

The sensors inside a bra would mean the breasts were in the same position each time measurements were taken. It means more work needs to be done scientifically. Generally, it’s a welcome development that needs more scientific work.”

Another oncologist, Dr. Bukola Oshikanlu, described the innovation as a good development especially because it has the ability to help in the early detection of cancer which is fundamental to the cure of the disease.

She said,

“Yes it will, but for women who detect abnormal signals from their breasts, they should then go for additional tests to confirm if truly they have breast cancer. An additional clinical test is needed to confirm that it is breast cancer and once the diagnosis is confirmed, they should commence treatment immediately.”

Experts have welcomed the idea but they believe the innovation needs more clinical testing before it can stand as an early cancer detection solution.