Clinical Research & Case Studies

Medical Tactile, Inc. (MTI) is pioneering the development of tactile elasticity imaging technology for use as a device for enhanced clinical breast exams. While the sensitivity and specificity of manual palpation is often low, the physical examination has remained until now the most accessible first line of defense in the early detection of breast cancer for most women.

Visualizing the sense of touch delivers important real-time information to primary care physicians with simple image interpretation. The accompanying images display the same suspicious lesion imaged by mammography, ultrasound, and SureTouch. The strongly contrasted signal visualized in the SureTouch image is easily recognized.

The SureTouch hand-held tactile probe detects differences in the underlying tissues by measuring reaction pressures. Studies of symptomatic women demonstrate that cancerous lesions are significantly harder than normal tissues and therefore produce well-defined tactile images. Preliminary research indicates that MTI's high resolution sensors have the ability to obtain significantly higher sensitivity than is achievable with manual palpation. Where manual palpation is imprecise and subjective, tactile data is objective and repeatable, providing standardized documentation for clinical breast exam findings. SureTouch is a technological achievement that can provide the first independent confirmation and documentation of CBE's with the potential to increase early detection of breast cancer and decrease breast cancer morbidity and mortality.

Disclaimer: SureTouch is FDA approved for documentation and not intended for diagnostic use at this time.

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Clinical Papers

Sarvazyan A, Egorov V, Son JS, Kaufman CS: Cost-effective screening for breast cancer worldwide: current state and future directions. Breast Cancer: Basic and Clinical Research 2008; 1: pp. 91–99.
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Kearney TJ, Airapetian S, and Sarvazyan A, "Tactile breast imaging to increase the sensitivity of breast examination" , J Clin Oncol, Volume 22, July 15 supp: 103, 2004
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Ables DC, et al., "Development of a device for documenting the clinical breast exam using a capacitive tactile array sensor." Medicine Meets Virtual Reality, 15th Annual Meeting, February 2007.
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Ables DC, et al., "The science behind electronic palpation: quantifying the sense of touch used in the clinical breast exam." San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, 29th Annual Meeting, December 2006.
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Kaufman CS, et al., "Objective measurement of the physical exam using a new device: reproducible triage of palpable masses" , Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, 2004; 88; supp 1:S223-4- SABCS 2004
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Kaufman CS, Palpation Imaging: Current Status, White paper 2005
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Kaufman CS, Jacobson L, Bachman BA, Kaufman LB: Digital documentation of the physical examination: moving the clinical breast exam to the electronic medical record. The American Journal of Surgery 192 (2006) 444-449.

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Case Studies

CaseStudy-007: Fibroadenoma

CaseStudy-011: Benign Ductal Cells

CaseStudy-014: Invasive Ductal Carcinoma