NIRScanner is a battery-operated hand-held infrared-based optical scanning device that the developers claim is both affordable and safe and could be used by women as an at-home personal health care solution to the early detection of breast cancer.

However, Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania scientists state the device is not designed to replace mammography, ultrasound, or other methods of screening for breast cancer, only that it offers an additional method of detection, much the same as monthly self-exams, only far more accurate at early detection. The simple device surpasses self-exam by touch in that it can detect changes in the breast that traditional self-exam could not, and the developers state that it would alert women to seek medical attention should the device detect a problem in the breast.

The NIRScanner makes steady low beeps as it moves over the breast. Using a type of near-infrared light that travels deep into breast tissue, if the hand-held device detects a tumor the beep tone gets higher. A microchip stores the information on the size and location of the tumor as the patient performs the self-examination and the information can be taken to be analyzed on a computer by a physician.

Although the researchers state that the device proved to be accurate over 90 percent of the time, it is still being tested, and needs funding to be brought to market. To read more about the NIRScanner, they have made an illustrated brochure available as a PDF document.