Further potential

Fermiscan - named in honour of one of the founders of synchrotron technology, the great Italian particle physicist Enrico Fermi - will be exhibiting on the Australian pavilion at BIO in San Diego in June. The company hopes not only to raise awareness of the test but also to meet other people doing biomarker research into breast cancer.

By then the company will be close to releasing the results of the validation trial it is running in several clinics in NSW, the ACT and Victoria. The company aims to have its diagnostic test available through women's health clinics in both the developed and developing world.

It is not necessarily the women in the current target group for mammography screening that the test is aimed at, David Young says. Women who are ineligible for mammography, and also those who refuse to be screened for whatever reason, are a potential market.

"From our perspective the real benefit is probably for women that are of an age that aren't eligible for mammography," Young says. "Despite the fact that the medical community has promoted self-breast examination and clinical breast examination, the sensitivity and specificity of that is proven to be very low.

"In reality there is a whole population base today that does not access mammographic screening, either because they are too young, or actually won't go and have a mammogram. Forty per cent of the target population don't have a mammogram, some due to embarrassment, pain or they don't want to know. The reality is that there is an enormous potential exclusion of patients from current screening. That in the long run will be our greatest benefit, to provide an alternative."

Women in developing countries are also potential targets, although not the prime one at the moment. Young points out that global statistics show that developing nations have the biggest fatality rates from breast cancer, predominantly because of a lack of screening. "We started from a more commercial, paying patient type of approach and therefore those countries weren't our original target, but from both an ethical perspective that is a significant opportunity," he says.

And while it is a long way down the track, breast cancer is potentially not the only disease category that could be diagnosed with x-ray diffraction of hair. The Company's patents also cover the use of the technology to potentially diagnose prostate cancer and Alzheimer's disease, which the company will explore, in addition to colon cancer, French says.

"The theory that links breast, prostate and colon cancer is that all of those cancers are adenocarcinomas - epithelial cancers that secrete factors that may have effects on other epithelial tissues, including skin and hair follicles," he says. "There is an overlying theory about this and it is more complex than it initially was foreseen.

"Some of the things that women do to their hair can significantly alter the diffraction pattern. We did look at pubic hair but that's thrown up too many false positives so we have decided not to pursue that. There's something odd about pubic hair that is unhelpful for this particular application."