With October, the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, not too far off, it's time again for women to renew their efforts to protect themselves against breast cancer. And for such a task, a new test is gradually gaining national attention as a critical means for early detection against the deadly disease.
Dr. Chandice Covington, former professor and Associate Dean of Academic and Clinical Affairs in the College of Nursing at WSU, conceived the innovative device, called the Halo Breast Pap Test, while at Wayne State. The device, currently licensed by the Irvine, Calif. based company NeoMatrix, is finding isolated success in parts of the West Coast and throughout the country, although not in Michigan however. In time, it has the chance to routinely give women a weapon for the war on breast cancer.
The fully automated device, which hopes to do for breast cancer what the pap smear has done for cervical cancer, delivers an easy, non-invasive, five-minute test that collects nipple aspirate fluid.
Cells in the fluid are then analyzed and determined whether to be pre-cancerous. While a mammogram can detect breast cancer up to two years before lumps can be felt, the Halo Breast Pap Test is able to detect abnormal cells several years before that.
Breast cancer is the leading cause of death for woman age 35-50, according to the American Breast Cancer Foundation. Up to 70 percent of women who develop breast cancer have no identifiable risk factors, and over 80 percent of women who get breast cancer exhibit no family history of the disease.
Covington's FDA approved machine will significantly improve the odds of discovering and fighting the deadly disease.
"Early detection of breast cancer produces better outcomes," said Covington, who's currently dean of the College of Nursing at the University of North Dakota. "The fluid that is collected is produced by the very cells that are cancerous or that are in early stages of pre-cancer. Early detection of pre-cancer could generate local treatments that are afforded, negating later needs to use radiation and chemotherapy for full cancer diagnoses."
Ninety percent of all breast cancer begins in the breast ducts where the nipple aspirate fluids occupy. Covington, with the help of WSU's physics and astronomy departments' machine shop and the Proto-Production Mold shop of Warren, was able to design the Halo where, much like a breast feeding pump, it was able to comfortably withdraw aspirate fluids - much to her patients' content.
However, there are some concerns that unnecessary biopsies or other invasive procedures may result from positive findings of pre-cancerous cells. Such procedures are unnecessary because, more often than not, these cells never become a full-blown tumor. Rather, they are destroyed by the body's natural defenses.
There is also concern that the device may miss pre-cancerous markers as it won't extract fluid from all breast ducts, only a couple. The test possibly can miss pre-cancerous cells from those other ducts that don't secret aspirate fluid for the test.
Despite these issues, any concern is outweighed by the positives Covington's device elicits. When used with other routine breast examinations, the Halo Breast Pap Test can prove to become a staple of saving women's lives years before they would otherwise know they were in trouble.
