Scientists have been able to successfully leverage millimetre-wave imaging to slash the rate of unnecessary biopsies.
In 2015, 5.9 million skin biopsies were performed on Medicare recipients - a 142 per cent increase since the turn of the millennium. The healing process from these procedures is long and painful, as doctors need to carve away small lumps of tissue for laboratory testing, leaving patients with wounds that can take weeks to heal.
Patients have been willing to undergo such treatments to enable early cancer treatment. However, this approach might soon no longer be necessary.
Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology are developing a low-cost handheld device that could cut the rate of unnecessary biopsies in half and give dermatologists and other frontline physicians easy access to laboratory-grade cancer diagnostics.
“We aren’t trying to get rid of biopsies,” said Negar Tavassolian, director of Stevens' Bio-Electromagnetics Laboratory...