Breakthrough May Lead to Home Test Kit for Cancer

There's an astonishing array of home test kits available for our purchase and use. For a few dollars, we can independently and quickly check our homes for the presence of lead or radon. We can also tend to matters of personal health by monitoring our blood sugar or determining pregnancy.

According to a University of Missouri press release, engineering professor Jae Kwon has developed a technology that could very well lead to a home testing kit with truly profound implications for our well being. Kwon's smaller-than-a-human-hair acoustical sensor, designed for the analysis of body fluids, is reported to have potential application for easy and independent detection of a variety of ailments, including breast and prostate cancers.

Kwon's work in this field has earned the respect and support of the academic and public sector health community. In January, he was the recipient of a $400,000 National Sciences Foundation grant to support his cancer sensor research and development efforts.

An easy to use home test kit is the target goal. Such an application could serve to bring peace of mind, to identify a problem early, or to reduce the need for invasive and expensive procedures whose results may not be known for days with a test that delivers immediate results.  Kwon explains his pursuit in the press release:

"Our ultimate goal is to produce a device that will simply and quickly diagnose multiple specific diseases, and eventually be used to create ‘point of care’ systems, which are services provided to patients at their bedsides. The sensor has strong commercial potential to be manifested as simple home kits for easy, rapid and accurate diagnosis of various diseases, such as breast cancer and prostate cancer."

Photo courtesy of watz via Flickr.