ADD breasts to the list of body parts doctors can probe with tiny cameras.
Researchers are testing out an endoscope as a way of spotting early signs of
breast cancer in women. The device has a camera with a 0.9-millimetre-wide
optical fibre that can be inserted through one of the 15 or so holes in a
woman鈥檚 nipple and slipped into the milk duct. Suspect tissue will show up as a
lump or a dull surface. Since most breast cancers start in those ducts, doctors
hope the camera can spot problems earlier in high-risk patients.
At the moment, patients have a general anaesthetic for the procedure, since
鈥渢he nipple is very sensitive鈥�, says project head Nicolas Beechey-Newman at
Guy鈥檚 Hospital in London. But he thinks a local anaesthetic will do if they can
make the probe even smaller.