CURA Healthcare, a healthcare technology company, on Tuesday launched ‘Illumina 360°,’ a breast cancer screening device.
Speaking to mediapersons at the event, M. Bala, president and CEO of the company, explained that the number of breast cancer cases in India was rising. He said 280 million young Indian women were at risk, but that a majority of those with the disease (about 70%), still came in late for treatment. Screening, he said, was hardly done. “The challenges are lack of awareness, painful examination, risk of radiation from the screening and breast exposure, which many women are uncomfortable with,” he said.
And so, CURA designed a product that combated most of these challenges, he said. The device, which uses an infra-red camera on a robotic arm, studies the breast tissue from 360° and detects any change in temperature, indicating an abnormality.
High accuracy rate
The advantages of this device over the X-Ray Mammography and the MRI, said N. Kannan, head, new product development at the company, were that it was painless, had no risk of radiation, minimised exposure and could be repeated. “Over 5,000 patients in six institutions were screened with the device,” he said adding that it could detect very small lesions and find changes earlier than other screening procedures could. The accuracy rate is 97%.
Sandeep Jaipurkar, radiologist at Vijaya Health Centre and Breast Clinic, who was one of the key partners in the development of the device, said the temperature chances were read at a workstation, and only the breast tissue was examined.
The company is preparing for a commercial launch and has the support of Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. The device is expected to be priced at around ₹30 lakh.
