Cancer not only affects life the of the patient, but their families as well. So, when 13-year-old Julian Rios Cantu found out that his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time, it hit him pretty hard.
He wanted to make sure that women and their families would no longer have to worry about losing them to breast cancer.
So, Cantu, now 18, along with his three friends formed Higia Technologies to create a bra that could detect breast cancer in its early stages.
Cantu’s mother’s cancer claimed both of her breasts and required her to get a double mastectomy, but thankfully she was able to get away with her life.
“The diagnosis came too late,” Cantu explains in his promotional video for the Eva bra. “My mother lost both of her breasts and almost her life.
His mother felt as if she had been “mutilated” by the disease.
“And all of this pain and suffering result of a late diagnostic due to the fallibility of current breast cancer-detecting methods,” he explains.
Early detection is key when it comes to preventing cancer from becoming terminal, as well as mastectomies. While most women do have regular breast exams, it came be hard to detect subtle changes in the breast.
Cantu’s “auto exploration bra” solves this problem by including 200 sensors that can detect early stage of breast cancer.
Cantu and his buddies recently won $20,000 in the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards contest to develop the Eva bra, which is currently in the prototype stage, according to BBC.
Women wear the bra for 60 to 90 minutes a week and the sensors detect changes in texture, color, and temperature as cancer tumors can increase temperature due to increased blood flow.
The bra sends this information to an app and alerts women and their oncologists of any negative changes. Higia Technologies says it could reduce time gaps in detection up to 95 percent and has the potential to save millions of lives.
The Eva bra is still in its early stages and it’s unclear if it would be a viable way to detect cancer as medical trials would need to be conducted.
“At present, there is no evidence to show whether this bra is a reliable way to detect tumors, and it’s certainly not a good idea for women to use technology that hasn’t been tested in good-quality scientific trials,” Cancer Research UK’s Anna Perman told the BBC. “It’s great to see young people like Julian getting into science and having ideas that could help with a cancer diagnosis. But an important part of science is rigorous testing, to make sure innovations like this actually benefit patients.”
We’ll have to watch the Eva bra’s evolution and see, but seeing youth like Cantu’s work on ways to improve our world is promising in itself.
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