TOMSK, Nov 24 – RIA Tomsk, Vyacheslav Matvievsky. Radiophysicists of Tomsk State University (TSU), developing a device that using microwave waves help detect breast cancer at an early stage, completed the stage of experimental verification of their development, for this they created a breast phantom with a tumor, which was screened, the university's press service said.
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Earlier it was reported that scientists of the TSU Faculty of Radiophysics (FRP) in 2019 began to develop a device that will help to detect breast cancer at an early stage and conduct non-invasive diagnostics of blood and diseases of internal organs using radio waves. This method is much better than X-ray tomography, since X-rays often do not characterize the occurrence of a tumor, which makes diagnosis difficult.
According to the press service, at the first stage of the development of a device for screening breast cancer using microwave radio waves, were tested the ideas and methods of solving the problem that the researchers faced - the search for malignant tumors in biological environments. This became possible thanks to the support of the Tomsk State University Academic D.I. Mendeleev Fund Programme.
"An important stage of experimental verification of the method of detecting and visualizing tumors inside biological tissues has now been completed. For this, radiophysicists have developed a phantom of the mammary gland - an artificial multilayer object, all elements of which are very close to real tissues in terms of their electrophysical characteristics", - says the message.
It is noted that the created breast phantom contains heterogeneities that mimic a malignant tumor. On the created installation radiophysics can carry out tumor screening, as well as, using special signal processing indicate with high accuracy where these inhomogeneities are located. The research results were published in the scientific journal Medical Physics.
"We expect to involve specialized companies in the study within 2-3 years, develop a working sample of the installation and enter the clinical trial stage. The same companies will ensure the certification of the device. We can already say that we will be able to reduce the patient's probing time as compared to foreign samples from 3-4 minutes to 20-30 seconds", - the professor of the TSU Faculty of Radiophysics Sergey Shipilov is quoted.
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Image of a breast with cancer cells in the microwave range