Health aNd Fitness Guide

Breast cancer, like any other cancer, secretes certain proteins for its survival. This protein can be detected in saliva or blood. Scientists from the University of Texas have identified certain proteins unique in patients with breast cancer. A study of the saliva of 30 women — 10 with no cancer, 10 with benign breast disease, and 10 with breast cancer — showed a definite difference in the saliva of each group. Now we depend on mammograms (X-rays of the breast) for diagnosis of breast cancer. But the tumor has to grow about half a centimeter to be detected. In about 15 per cent cases, mammograms failed to detect cancer. Also, the method is not very expensive and not very common in the developing world. Non-invasive molecular tests looking at the protein expression in the tumor can detect the cancer early on.