Breakthrough In Breast Cancer Screening
Livermore, California (PRWEB) March 13, 2015 -- POC Medical Systems, Inc. (“POC”) announced that it is in the final stage of completing a technology for early and accurate screening of breast cancer. A recent breakthrough in Sensor and Microfluidic technology has resulted in the invention of POC’s low cost and highly accurate system – the Pandora CDx. The key issues POC’s system addresses in disease screening is product sensitivity, specificity, low cost, and portability.
Sanjeev Saxena, Founder and CEO of POC explains, “The Pandora CDx Breast Cancer screening / detection system will be ready for clinical trial by this summer”. The company is currently Alpha testing the Pandora CDx which incorporates technologies licensed from Sandia National Labs and Lawrence Livermore Labs. POC’s engineering and scientific team fused and refined these licensed technologies into an accessible screening system for an array of diseases. Mr. Saxena, explained, “The screening / detection is accomplished through the development of POC’s next generation microfluidics systems combined with multiplexed Immuno-Assays which read multiple signatures in the blood using a proprietary sensor / detection system”.
Mr. Saxena, explains that the Pandora CDx has been tested with 240 blood samples of people previously tested using mammograms followed by biopsies. The 240 blood samples consisted of women with no cancer and others with cancer at various stages. The Pandora CDx test was performed and it was determined to have a sensitivity of 91.6% and a specificity of 100%.
According to the WHO and ACS the current accuracy of mammography is 75%. This varies based on the experience of the radiologist and quality of the mammogram. It is common to have about three to four false positives per image which are resolved using CAD based systems followed by biopsies. Mammography which is considered to be “the gold standard” in breast cancer diagnosis has been surrounded by tremendous controversy due to the low accuracy, high cost, radiation exposure over time and inaccessibility in most places.
POC’s breakthrough technology will be an ideal alternative for screening Breast cancer around the globe, even in the most remote locations as it requires minimal training, can be run on batteries, and does not require any special infrastructure.
According to Globocan, (the Cancer arm of WHO), there are over two million women diagnosed with Breast Cancer every year and over 500,000 women die every year from this disease. However, it is important to note that this based on the only 60 million women who are actually screened annually. There are over 1.6 billion women over the age of 40 and less than 4% of those women eligible for screening are screened today. If all 1.6 billion eligible women (which would cost over $480 billion using current methods) the number of women with cancer would be closer to 60 million and the number of actual deaths would be closer to 16 million. Most of these deaths can be avoided if the cancer can be detected early. This is what POC hope to change.
Located in Livermore, California, POC Medical Systems Inc., develops advanced Microfluidics and Assay detection technology and software to analyze data. Its present focus in medical applications is to deliver increased diagnostic accuracy and improved patient outcomes.
Sanjeev Saxena, POC Medical, http://www.pocmedicalsystems.com/, +1 (925) 350-6200, [email protected]
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