Former NASA scientist designs handheld ultrasound for at-home breast monitoring
The future of breast screening could lie in patients' homes rather than at hospitals, the Times of Israel reported this week, owing to a proposed handheld ultrasound designed by a former biomedical scientist at NASA.
Inventor Yehudit Abrams, originally from Boise, Idaho, and presently based in Jerusalem, said the idea for an at-home screening device came from a need to help women objectively conduct self-breast exams at home. Women often don’t know what they’re really feeling for, she said.
“Prevention is a daily effort,” Abrams told the Times. “It’s something that a person really has to take charge of themselves. Doctors practice medicine, but only patients can practice prevention.”
Starting with the design of an app that included an interactive breast map for monthly check-ins, Abrams eventually worked her way up to her current idea: a device fitted to a woman’s cup size that would rest on four quadrants of each breast and under the armpits for a brief time. The ultrasound device collects that data and compresses it into a handful of scans, where imaging software detects any abnormalities. The software also includes a feature that will allow patients to send scans directly to their physician, Abrams said.
With the device, women would be able to check for breast cancer more regularly, because mammograms can be both costly and lead to unneeded anxiety related to false-positives. Abrams' software has already received FDA approval in the U.S., but she's working on creating the hardware around the product, which will require FDA approval in later stages. She's calling the project MonitHer.
Read more from the Times of Israel below:
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.