High-tech 'Smart Bra' could replace mammograms

By 2014, women may be able to screen themselves for breast cancer painlessly, effectively, and constantly without even lifting a finger.

A high-tech "smart bra," designed to help save lives by monitoring breast tissue for abnormalities, is in its final stages of testing after four years of development. 

So far, the device has a 92.1 per cent level of accuracy when it comes to classifying tumors, according to the team of scientists behind it. Mammograms currently diagnose correctly at approximately 70 per cent.
Developed by a U.S. biotechnology company called First Warning Systems, the smart bra contains precise sensors that measure minute temperature changes which occur when blood vessels grow to feed tumors. 

This data collected from the censors is processed by a piece of proprietary software. It uses a custom algorithm to look for changes and signs that a tumor may be present and growing over time.

These temperature changes are so small that it would normally take years before a woman could feel anything on her own by performing a self screening, or even before a mammogram could detect them.

In one a clinical trial performed by First Warning Systems with over 650 participants, the smart bra was able to detect rumblings of a tumor six years before a mammogram could.