Could Hair be Used to Detect Breast Cancer?

The Australian company Fermiscan is developing a test that can potentially identify a patient with breast cancer using just 20 or so strands of hair.
The new test bombards the hair samples with x-rays, which creates a diffraction pattern. The hair from patients with breast cancer more often than not will produce a distinctly different x-ray diffraction pattern than hair from cancer-free patients.
The company hopes that their test can supplement the current gold-standards of mammography and ultrasound. In addition, if the test is sensitive enough it can help avoid unnecessary biopsies.
Read the press release here…
Fermiscan company page…
Image: Fermiscan hair x-ray showing ring present in fiber diffraction pattern.