Abstract

Point-of-Care Technologies in the Diagnosis of Breast Cancer in Both Resource-Rich and Poor Settings

Jane Brock, Assistant Professor, Brigham And Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School

Breast Cancer care includes prevention, early detection, diagnostics and therapeutics. Therapeutic decisions are made based on traditional prognostic factors including tumor size, lymph node status, and factors obtained from pathological assessment including tumor grade, immuno-histochemical profile of Estrogen and Progesterone Receptor (ER and PR) and Her2/neu gene amplification status. Point of care technology is not currently used in this routine pathological assessment, but there are opportunities to both expedite diagnosis and reduce costs in both resource-rich and poor settings. This presentation will discuss alternative methods of tissue biopsy handling and imaging and prognostic marker evaluation that can obviate the need for expensive processing equipment (that is rarely available in resource-poor settings), and can allow for more rapid diagnosis compared with traditional tissue processing (within fifteen minutes rather than > 24 hours), and biomarker analysis (<2hrs rather than 8-24 hr). The application of these technologies, many already available or under development, can expedite the therapeutic decision making process making same-day diagnosis and therapeutic planning feasible in both resource-rich and poor settings, when the patient is still at the point of care location.