Tiny Chip to Measure Breast Estrogen Levels?
Estrogen is one of the things that can feed breast cancer, and it is one of the concerns that doctors have as to the levels of the hormone in a woman’s breast when they have breast cancer, or to determine their likelihood of getting breast cancer, so they have been trying to figure out a way to measure breast estrogen levels without actually doing anything invasive, like cutting into the breast tissues (ouch).
They still may have to invade the breast tissue, but with a new possible invention, they may only need to prod the breast tissue with a needle that is headed up by a tiny microchip which can read the levels of estrogen inside of a woman’s breast. But the implications for this type of minimally invasive therapy to tell what a person’s hormones levels are in certain areas of the body go much further than breast cancer treatment and testing whether breast cancer therapy is actually working in a patient by looking at her hormone levels when she is on estrogen limiting medications.
The implications may spread to diagnosing and successfully treating infertility in women (and potentially men too), helping to figure out the likelihood and the treatment of choice for prostate cancer in men, and basically any disease that has connections to hormone levels in the male and female body, which are unfortunately aplenty in the world of disease and physical conditions that range from burdensome to life threatening.
The idea behind this high tech, under development high tech hormone detecting chip is that it uses electrical currents to separate hormones from other cells, and then gathers them together to test for their levels. It does this all, miraculously, on the surface of a tiny, almost microscopic chip. Of course, this product is years away from any type of release into physicians and oncologist’s hands, but it is nonetheless intriguing to think of how this could be used in the future of medicine.
Breasts have a high concentration of estrogen in them normally, and women with breast cancer have an even higher concentration of the hormone in their breast tissue, so this signifies a higher likelihood of a woman developing breast cancer, however right now the technology to detect hormone levels in a breast are highly invasive, with a large chunk of breast tissue being needed from the patient in order that a scientists/researcher may study it and determine the hormone levels.
Obviously, this is not preferable and results in a lot of trauma, so if a better method can be attained, that would be awesome for women everywhere.
