Breast cancer screening solutions with technology

All women aged 50 up to their 71st birthday are invited for breast screening every three years in the UK.

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the UK. About 12,000 women in the UK die from breast cancer every year. Screening saves about one life for every 200 women screened because of its early detection of breast cancer. This adds up to about 1,300 lives saved from breast cancer each year in the UK.

Patient positioning is the most challenging but most crucial aspect of obtaining good quality diagnostic mammograms for the radiographer.  All attempts are made to try and perform mammography on every eligible client but sometimes because of the lack of upper body strength of the client it is simply not possible to position a woman safely and either mammograms cannot be performed at all or they only image part of the breast and are therefore not of diagnostic quality.

The Robot-assisted Breast Screening project started in North Yorkshire, in their Breast Screening service there are currently 119374 eligible women for breast screening. Out of these, 477 women are registered wheelchair users and a further 2985 clients are registered with a physical restriction. They are currently failing to give equity of access to breast screening to a significant number of their population as demonstrated by the figures above- potentially  2.9% of their local population which is even more significant if extrapolated to the whole of the UK.

jane hudson york university

Jane Hudson one of our members found herself in the position of not being able to get a screening test and later found she had breast cancer. After contacting various NHS screening services, one of the nurses approached York universities robotic lab to see if a solution could be found. This is where the Robot-assisted Breast Screening project began.

The overarching aim of the robot-assisted breast screening project is to leverage recent advances in robotics and artificial intelligence to make cancer breast screening accessible, for the first time, to women who lack upper body strength and are currently unable to benefit from this potentially life-saving NHS service. Through collaboration with York and Scarborough teaching hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Spinal Injuries Association we will involve radiologists, end-users, and robotics developers to co-create the solution.

We recently visited York University (pictured) to observe a prototype in action and assess the remaining tasks. The visit was highly informative, and we are now part of their project board. Our role includes assisting with funding efforts, advocating for government support for this technology, and connecting the project with our other partners to explore potential collaborations.

robot arm group photo

Read more:

Support for women with SCI to have mammograms

read the story about our visit

A helping hand – a tale of robots, AI and accessible breast screening for all (14 June 2024)

CANCER RESEARCH STORY

New study to create assistance robots in breast screening patients with limited mobility (11 July 2024)

YORK UNIVERSITY STORY