Cloud, Analytics Improve Breast Cancer Screening Education

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Hands can be just as good as expensive mammograms at discovering tiny cancerous lesions in breasts. But to be effective, these hands must be well trained.

Delivering that training efficiently and cost-effectively is the mission of MammaCare, a company determined "to provide breast examination proficiency for every clinician who examines women and for every woman who performs a self-exam." MammaCare developed the quality standard for physical examination of the breast with the support of the National Cancer Institute, the National Science Foundation, and many scientists around the globe.

"Young women have less cancer… than women in their 60s, but in young women it's more deadly and far less findable by X-ray," says Mark Goldstein, PhD, MammaCare cofounder and chairman, in an interview. "In the case of a young woman, a lesion can double every three months or four months. For a woman in her 60s, it can take 10 times longer than that."

"New data suggests hands are just as accurate as X-rays," he adds.

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Canadian researchers followed 89,000 women since 1980, and discovered 22% of women whose breast cancers were discovered by mammograms were overdiagnosed. As a result, these patients received unnecessary treatments -- causing emotional, physical, and financial tolls and costing the healthcare system unneeded money. Each year, more than 232,000 American women are diagnosed with breast cancer, and more than 39,600 women in the US alone were expected to die of the disease last year. That number is decreasing due to earlier detection from screenings, treatment advances, and increased awareness, according to non-profit BreastCancer.org.

In the ongoing battle to reduce deaths and find lesions early, MammaCare developed a learning platform within its lab, says Goldstein.

(Image: MammaCare)

"We promised the National Science Foundation we were going to get it in all the hands that examined women," he says. "But how were we going to get it everywhere? It's useless unless it gets out to the people who are doing the work."

MammaCare needed a partner that could deliver educational materials via the cloud to meet an ever-changing size of users at universities, government institutions, and healthcare providers, says Goldstein. In addition, MammaCare

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