Biomarkers for Breast Cancer Detection in the Resting-State Dynamics of the Hemoglobin Signal

Introduction: Increased tissue stiffness, presence of structural malformations, and altered perfusion of the vascular bed are known phenotypic markers for the presence of breast cancer [1,2]. Awareness of these phenomena has motivated our development of instrumentation platforms that can explore the naturally occurring dynamics of the hemoglobin signal. The dimensionality of the information space that could be explored has prompted us to consider simplified data-collection conditions. An example is a simple resting-state measure, wherein time-series optical measures are obtained from both breasts simultaneously under defined conditions of optode contact [3]. As evidenced by the reported results, promising findings have been obtained based on examination of the resting-state responses.