Hand-held non-invasive NIR device for early stage breast cancer pre-screening

We present a hand-held, low-cost, non-invasive and non-ionizing near-infrared (NIR) light-based pre-screening devices for early stage breast cancer. The pre-screening of breast cancer in women at risk can improve the prognosis of patients, and such a solution should complement the existing diagnostic approaches. Our design is based on the principle of amplitude cancellation of two anti-phase NIR light-emitting diodes (LEDs) operated at a wavelength of 840nm placed at a fixed distance from a photodetector in the middle. The device has been tested on breast phantom made of Acetal Resin Rod. The design functionality has been achieved from implemented prototype and has been verified by several experiments resulting in detection of a non-homogenous object inside the phantom. This proposed design can be further improved by integration with efficient probe-based algorithm, which will show the presence of abnormalities in the human breast in an automated procedure. This device can provide a practical, low-cost solution for massive breast-cancer pre-screening campaigns, especially in developing countries.