New Australian Technology: Detecting Breast Cancer...(s the primary objectiveand that women co...),Health

Minister Firth said women would find the potential accuracy rate of 75% for the Fermiscan Test very encouraging. The Fermiscan Test, included as part of routine screening, promises to be a powerful new tool in the fight against breast cancer which globally claims 500,000 lives a year(3).

One in eight women in Australia and the USA will develop breast cancer in their lifetime(4) and the global incidence of the disease is one million annually(3). Currently the 'gold standard' for detecting the disease is mammography.

According to Fermiscan's CEO, David Young, "The Fermiscan Test has the potential to provide a non invasive, fast and accurate addition to existing technologies for the detection of breast cancer in women of all ages. This test is not aimed at replacing mammograms, ultrasound or other diagnostic technologies, but we hope it can be a test that eventually will become part of the arsenal of early detection techniques for the disease," he said.

The Fermiscan Test is based on the discovery that women with breast cancer have a change in the structure of their hair which is detected using a technique called X-ray diffraction. This change is seen as a ring superimposed on the normal X-ray diffraction pattern of hair. [See images on http://www.australiabio2008.com/FermiscanNMR.php]. The research has been published in the prestigious scientific journals as Nature (1999)(5), the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (2001)(6) and the International Journal of Cancer (2005 and 2008)(7, 8).

Fermiscan plans to develop the hair test by establishing links with key medical specialists and cancer centres within Australia and internationally, (Singapore, Italy and Japan). Through these links, Fermiscan will continue to conduct c
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