Smart Breast Clips for Optimizing Breast Cancer Treatment
Abstract
In this research, we address the challenge of revolutionizing breast cancer treatment by introducing a new technique to monitor breast cancer treatment response and personalize therapy for each individual patient. Our approach will not only make breast cancer treatments more effective and less toxic, but it will reduce the number of deaths resulting from locally advanced and metastatic breast cancer. To achieve these objectives, we are developing “smart breast clips,” which are similar in size to the standard breast clips that are commonly used by radiologists to mark the location of tumors at the time of breast biopsy (i.e., radiological marker clips). About the size of a grain of rice, the smart breast clip is a safe, wireless, low-power light-based sensor that continuously measures the molecular composition of a tumor, without requiring the injection of potentially toxic contrast agents (e.g., MRI, PET), the use of ionizing radiation (e.g., PET, CT, mammography), or a visit to a specialized imaging center. The smart breast clip is powered wirelessly and can be read out with a simple handheld device in the doctor’s office or at home similar to a continuous glucose sensor. The information obtained from the smart breast clip can be used by the oncologist to monitor tumor regression and progression in the breast and at metastatic locations. The doctor can then quickly respond to indications that treatment is working or beginning to lose effectiveness by altering the treatment approach. Data have already shown that this response-guided approach can improve survival in patients with locally advanced breast cancer. Here we provide a tool to translate these benefits to patients with metastatic breast cancer. Our smart breast clip approach may also reduce the use of costly PET and MRI imaging, which is commonly used to measure treatment response. In the long term, the information provided by the smart breast clip will be used to develop new, less-toxic treatment approaches so that metastatic breast cancer becomes an inconvenient medical condition rather than a life-threatening disease. Besides monitoring tumor response to treatment, the smart breast clips may also be used to monitor non-cancerous (benign) breast lesions that are at high risk of becoming breast cancer. This would greatly reduce the frequent imaging needed for patients at high risk of breast cancer. During this 3-year project, our goals are to (1) fabricate a functional smart breast clip system, (2) demonstrate that the smart breast clips are as safe as current breast clips, and (3) validate that they are sensitive to tumor response to chemotherapy in a mouse model of breast cancer. The results of this research will provide critical safety and efficacy data that will immediately lead to the development of new smart breast clips that can be trialed in breast cancer patients.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Mar 10, 2021
- Source ID
- W81XWH2010010
Entities
People
- Thomas O Sullivan
Organizations
- United States Army
- University of Notre Dame