Continuing their work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Canan Dağdeviren and her team have completed the wearable ultrasound device “electronic bra” [Conformable Ultrasound Breast Patch (cUSBr-Patch)] project that they have been working on for 6 years and announced it to the world with an article published in Science Advances last week.

The device is a flexible piece that can be attached to a bra, allowing the user to move an ultrasound tracker along the piece and view breast tissue from different angles.

“We have transformed ultrasound technology so that you can use it at home. It is portable, easy to use, and provides real-time, user-friendly monitoring of breast tissue,” said Dr. Dağdeviren, who is the senior lead author of the Science Advances article, along with MIT graduate student Wenya Du, researchers Lin Zhang, Emma Suh, and Prof. Dr. Dabin Lin from Xi’an University of Technology.

Dr. Dağdeviren, who specializes in developing wearable electronic devices that adapt to the body, was inspired by her aunt, Fatma Çalışkanoğlu, who was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer at the age of 49 despite regular cancer screenings and died six months later. Dağdeviren, who was working as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT while accompanying her aunt to the hospital, also drew the rough draft of a diagnostic device that could be placed in a bra and would allow individuals at high risk of breast cancer to be screened more frequently.

To make the device wearable, the research team designed a flexible, 3D-printed piece with honeycomb-shaped openings. This piece can be attached to a bra with openings that allow the ultrasound scanner to touch the skin using magnets. The ultrasound scanner allows the entire breast to be imaged with the tracking device moved in different directions. The scanner can be rotated to take images from different angles, and does not require any expertise to use.

For details of the news, you can visit the following link: https://news.mit.edu/2023/wearable-ultrasound-scanner-breast-cancer-0728