Nobody Likes a Mammogram

Breast cancer is not just an issue for women on a global scale; however, one man is working to help lower breast cancer mortality rates. His solution: the iBreastExam.

The Economic Times

Women are affected by breast cancer each year, both in and outside of the United States.

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This was true for a poet that was diagnosed with breast cancer, Audre Lorde. As she described her experience in her book The Cancer Journals she battled breast cancer and a mastectomy. Throughout the book, she talks about just her personal experience with cancer, however, in the beginning of the book, she discusses how many different women go through the challenges of breast cancer. Lorde states, “Breast cancer and mastectomy are not unique experiences, but ones shared by thousands of american women” (Lorde, 8).

However, it is not just women who are diagnosed that are affected, but it is also their friends and families that are dealing with this tough time as well.

Mihir Shah, a computer engineer also had his own experience with breast cancer that lead to something greater. Shah was getting married right after his mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer. After this experience with breast cancer, Shah realized how lucky he was that the women in his life, both in the United States and India were fortunate to have the accessibility to receive proper breast cancer screenings.

According to an article that was published by “The Lancet”, the five year United States survival rate for breast cancer is significantly different than a lot income country. For example, the five year survival rate for breast cancer in the United States is 90.2 percent and the five year survival rate for breast cancer in India is 66.1 percent. There are many reasons for this, such as lack of access to adequate healthcare, healthcare is unaffordable, or lack of testing resources.

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But why is women’s health not a priority and why are there no options for alternative types of testing?

This is exactly what Shah was thinking when he tried to develop a way to bring cancer testing to low income countries, like India. This lead Shah to help develop a new type of breast cancer testing that was pain free, quick, and easy to learn. This is when the iBreastExam was developed. This device can offer women a quick and affordable test to see if they may have breast cancer or not.

This new device is made out of ceramic and puts off no radiation to the woman’s (or man’s) body. This new technology is easy to use, a quick assessment, and is not invasive. This device completely changes the the way that cancer screening is conducted.

According to a New York Times article, the same one where Shah was introduce, explained how the device itself works. The article states that the device, which is small and portable, connects to a smartphone. The trained professional then goes over four quadrants of the patient’s breast, which will either appear green on the screen, meaning the area is clear, or red, where the area is questionable and the patient is going to have to a nearby hospital to talk with a doctor about the possible cancerous area. This type of screening takes only 10 minutes and the person that is conducting the screening can be trained in just 8 hours. The results of the test automatically save to the smartphone and the patient gets the results right away.

Another major added benefit to this type of screening is that there is no radiation being given to the patient. This is one of the main concerns with mammograms, is that women are concerned about the radiation that is being exposed. Also, mammograms just flat out hurt, causing women to steer clear of them.

So, with the technology such as the iBreastExam, does this change women’s health?

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I would say that it most definitely has changed women’s health and cancer awareness for the better. This is especially true in low income countries where there is a lot of less advocacy or education provided for breast cancer. With the device such as the iBreastExam, which has been implemented in twelve countries and 200 plus locations worldwide, more and more women are getting testing and treated for breast cancer. The iBreastExam also gets more and more women in the clinics to receive education surrounding breast cancer, such as signs and symptoms of breast cancer and how to conduct at home breast exams.

However, the only issue with the iBreastExam being widespread around the world is the different cultural practices within each country.

In the New York Times article, the author discusses how officials were worried about the iBreastExam being a device that uses ultrasound. The developers of the device had to show that there was no ultrasound technology within the device. This worry from the officials is because the ultrasound technology can determine the sex of a fetus. However, the ultrasound technology is now banned from India due to the fact that mothers were terminating the pregnancy due to the sex of the fetus, causing a very skewed population. So, different approaches and methods of convincing that the device is safe and effective in each country may be difficult but it is ultimately necessary.

Overall, the iBreastExam is a major step in the right direction in terms of advocacy for turning around the statistics of breast cancer cases around the world. Although it may not the absolute best type of cancer detection, it is better than nothing, which is what women had before.

Regardless of the device, women around the world need to know about the cancers that can take over their body. Cost and location of these services should not impact the chances of these women potentially saving their own lives.

Related Course Reading: Lorde, Audre. "The Cancer Journals: Special edition." San Francisco: Aunt Lute (1997).