Can fingerprint tests detect breast cancer?
Can sweat from a woman’s fingertip help detect breast cancer? Scientists at Sheffield Hallam University have developed a fingerprint test that offers a painless and non-invasive alternative to current mammograms.
Professor Simona Francese has been working in forensic science for almost 15 years, using fingerprints to help profile criminal suspects.
But along the way, her research team realized that the same method could also be used to check for breast cancer.
“Sweat contains a lot of different molecules but what we're interested in is proteins. What we do in effect is detect those proteins and the different levels of expression of those proteins and different factors of expression tell us whether a patient has a benign pathology or has early (stage) cancer or is metastatic and we use artificial intelligence to make sense of those mass spectrometry data.”
In 2021, breast cancer overtook lung cancer as the most common form of the disease, accounting for nearly 12% of new cases every year worldwide. That's according to the World Health Organization.
Traditional methods of screening and detection, such as mammograms or biopsies, are effective but can expose individuals to radiation and cause discomfort.
Francese believes a non-invasive fingerprint test could someday replace the mammogram, and encourage more people to have regular screenings.
“Of course, in saying that, this is what we have at the moment so I absolutely will encourage women to take those tests because they still save the lives.”
Reuters
