breast cancer Archives - Medical Design Sourcing

MIT researchers build wearable ultrasound scanner for earlier breast cancer detection

This wearable ultrasound scanner could offer frequent, at-home imaging of breast tissue to spot tumors earlier and increase survival rates. [Photo courtesy of MIT]

A wearable ultrasound scanner developed by researchers at MIT could improve the survival rate of breast cancer patients.

The researchers 3D-printed a flexible patch that can attach to a bra using magnets. The patch has six openings where a miniaturized ultrasound scanner can contact the skin and image the wearer’s breast tissue from different angles.

The goal is to detect breast cancer earlier with more frequent screening for patients at high risk.

“We changed the form factor of the ultrasound technology so that it can be used in your home,” MIT Media Lab Associate Professor Canan Dagdeviren, who designed the miniaturized scanner, said in a news release. “It’s portable and easy to use, and provides real-time, user-frie…

How Google and iCAD will partner to advance AI mammography

iCAD’s AI for digital breast tomosynthesis provides a case score for each detection. (Image courtesy of iCAD)

iCAD will help Google Health get its AI mammography technology into clinical practice, while Google will help iCAD improve its algorithms and reach more patients through the cloud.

Google and cancer detection developer iCAD are teaming up on the development and commercialization of artificial intelligence (AI) for detecting breast cancer.

It’s Google Health’s first partnership with a mammography AI provider. The development and commercialization agreement is Google Health’s first deal to introduce its breast imaging AI into clinical practice through iCAD’s portfolio of AI products.

RELATED: How the cloud tools behind Google Maps and Photos can advance medtech

Nashua, New Hampshire-based iCAD (Nasdaq:ICAD) is licensing Google’s AI technology for breas…

Amazon partners with Fred Hutchinson Cancer on cancer vaccine trial

Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN) and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are working together on a Phase 1 FDA-approved clinical study that will investigate a personalized neo-antigen peptide vaccine for melanoma and certain types of breast cancer.

According to a listing on clinicaltrials.gov, the study aims to recruit 20 participants.

Amazon will offer scientific and machine learning capabilities in the alliance with the Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

In particular, the Phase 1 study will focus on patients with stage IIIC-IV melanoma or hormone-receptor-positive HER2 negative breast cancer. In addition, patients’ cancer in the trial must either be metastatic or refractory.

Patients in the study will receive a weekly intramuscular injection of poly ICLC in weeks when no vaccine is administered. Poly ICLC is an immunostimulant composed of polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid, carboxymethylcellulose and polylysine.

Two weeks afte…

AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo win new breakthrough therapy designation for Enhertu

AstraZeneca/Daiichi-Sankyo

The HER2-directed antibody-drug conjugate Enertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan) has won its fifth breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA.

Enhertu was developed jointly by AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) and Daiichi Sankyo (OTCMKTS: DSNKY).

The latest designation relates to treating adults with unresectable or metastatic HER2-low (IHC 1+ or IHC 2+/ISH-negative) breast cancer.

Of the five breakthrough therapy designations for the drug, three are for breast cancer, while the other two are in lung and gastric cancers, respectively.

In particular, the designation covers adults who have received prior systemic therapy for metastatic breast cancer or who have experienced disease recurrence within six months of finishing adjuvant chemotherapy.

In addition, the designation specifies that patients with hormone receptor (HR) positive breast cancer have received or be inelig…

AstraZeneca’s and Merck’s Lynparza wins new breast cancer approval from FDA

The poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor Lynparza (olaparib) has become the first FDA-approved medicine targeting BRCA mutations in early breast cancer.

The drug was developed by AstraZeneca (NSDQ:AZN) and Merck & Co. (NYSE:MRK), which is known as MSD outside of the U.S.

Lynparza is already approved for a number of other indications. FDA approved the drug to treat advanced ovarian cancer in 2014. Indications followed for maintenance treatment of ovarian cancer and for germline BRCA-mutated metastatic breast cancer, pancreatic and advanced ovarian cancer. In 2020, FDA granted additional indications related to ovarian cancer and prostate cancer.

The most recent indication of Lynparza covers the adjuvant treatment of patients with germline BRCA-mutated (gBRCAm) HER2-negative high-risk early breast cancer.

The indication is limited to patients who have received prior chemotherapy before or after surgery.

In weighing the decision, FDA revie…

Intuitive responds to FDA alert on robot-assisted mastectomies

The FDA is warning patients and health care providers that some clinical studies using robotically-assisted surgical devices for mastectomies may not have the proper regulatory supervision.

The FDA said it is “aware of allegations that clinical studies are being conducted using RAS devices to perform mastectomies for the prevention or treatment of cancer without the FDA oversight required for such significant risk studies.”

The agency has cleared robotically-assisted surgical devices for use in hysterectomies, prostatectomies and colectomy based on 30-day follow-ups with patients, but cautioned that it “has not evaluated the safety or effectiveness of RAS devices for the prevention or treatment of cancer, based on cancer-related outcomes such as overall survival, recurrence, and disease-free survival.”

The FDA did not name specific device manufacturers, but its Aug. 20 safety communication came about a month after the publication of a MedScape report hig…

4D Path and University of Leeds extend partnership to validate oncology platform

The precision oncology company 4D Path has committed to partnering with the U.K.-based University of Leeds at least until 2027. The two entities are already collaborators, having worked together on three completed breast cancer clinical trials. In particular, researchers at the University of Leeds have used 4D Path’s Q-plasia OncoReader Breast software to analyze data from more than 1,000 patients over the past three years. 4D Path says its technology can help in various levels in clinical trials starting from patient recruitment for therapy eligibility, which can be challenging for rare mutations, to designing trials for therapy benefit and potentially suggesting drug target screens. The company's technology supports biomarker profiling and stratification from hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) whole slide biopsy and resection images. The platform can help researchers identify the cancer subtype, grade, presence of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and horm…