Manitoba grad student creating portable device to help people detect breast cancer
A graduate student in the University of Manitoba’s physics department is hoping to make it easier for people in remote communities to detect breast cancer as early as possible.
As part of Gabrielle Fontaine's master’s thesis, she has been designing a portable breast cancer detection device that would be suitable for use in low-income and remote areas.
“I’m minimizing the size, the weight, and the cost of it so that it can be sent to low-income areas, as well as remote and rural areas,” she said in an interview on Tuesday.
Fontaine said in low to middle-income countries the incidence rates of breast cancer are lower, but the mortality rates are “disproportionality higher.”
“Lack of early detection contributes to these disproportionately high mortality rates,” she said.
Fontaine, whose family is from Sagkeeng First Nation, said as an Anishinaabe person, she thought about how this portable device could help northern and First Nations communities in Canada that have limited access to medical facilities.
Source: Gabrielle Fontaine
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Fontaine explained the device emits low-power microwaves towards the breast and detects scattered signals.
“From those signals, we are able to distinguish whether or not the breast has an abnormality,” she said.
Fontaine noted microwaves are non-ionizing, which means that they do not pose the same health risks as X-rays.
“For this device, you’re not limited to the amount of scans you can take,” she said.
“Anyone at any given time can take as many scans as they want.”
Fontaine is also designing the detection device so that patients can operate it themselves.
“It’s going to contain a graphical and easy-to-understand graphical interface, so that this patient can perform a scan on themselves and then using artificial intelligence, it will automatically tell the patient whether they have a breast abnormality or not,” Fontaine said.
“This way there’s no need for a trained personnel to operate or obtain a preliminary diagnosis.”
THE NEXT STEPS
Fontaine is in the early stages of creating the device, having just started designing and developing it a little more than a year ago.
She said she has been characterizing the antennas, scans, and signals by taking scans of a copper rod.
“I have rods that I place inside my device and I’m trying to locate this rod based on how the microwaves are scattering against this rod,” she said.
Next, when Fontaine begins her Ph.D. next year, she will modify the design and take scans of breast phantoms that mimic breast tissues.
“I will take multiple scans of these breast phantoms and then use artificial intelligence to determine whether or not that breast phantom had a tumour,” she explained.
Once the device is shown to produce reliable results with breast phantoms, the next step will be to perform clinical trials and scans on real people to see if it is as effective.
“Ideally, I would love to have these types of devices available in every community, say in the community centre, so that anyone can go to this device at a given time and just perform a scan on themselves as often as they want,” Fontaine said.
“This way, if the device does tell them that a breast abnormality is present, then they can go to a hospital to perform further tests.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
'Anything to win': Trudeau says as Poilievre defends meeting protesters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
"It's a bit of a complicated pattern; we've got a lot going on," said Jennifer Smith of the Meteorological Service of Canada in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. "[As is] typical with weather, all of these things are related."
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Police tangle with students in Texas and California as wave of campus protest against Gaza war grows
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
'My stomach dropped': Winnipeg man speaks out after being criminally harassed following single online date
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.