INNOVATIONS designed to deal with major health issues such as breast cancer and high blood pressure have been developed by masters students at a Scottish university.
The power of 3D digital technology has been harnessed for use by students on the pioneering Medical Visualisation and Human Anatomy course, a masters programme co-delivered by Glasgow School of Art and Glasgow University.
Their innovations show how visualisation could help address some of the biggest health problems facing the world today by enabling early breast cancer detection, increasing uptake of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) screening, and improving the management of hypertension as well as improving communication around female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C).
Student Haley Fig Barber’s work sets out to demonstrate that affordable, haptically-accurate breast models can be developed to help early detection of cancer.
Breast cancer is the leading type of cancer among women worldwide and is on the rise in low-income counties. One of the most effective ways of detecting breast cancer early is for women to examine themselves regularly, especially in areas where there is less access to other early detection methods such as mammograms.
However, current models aimed at helping to teach breast self-examination are often oversimplified and lack a range of skin tones and sizes. Fig Barber looked into whether harnessing the potential of 3D printing to create moulds, constructed from clinical data, to make better breast models would mean that more women were able to learn what to look for and identify tumours.
Early results show the methodology of using 3D printed moulds is sound and the project could act as a pilot study in body tissue haptics.
Student Ella Jones has created a mobile public health app that could be used to assess awareness of the NHS AAA screening programme.
“Mortality from an AAA rupture is significant at 85% and the screening programme is thought to reduce the deaths of the affected population by 50%,” she said.
“However, the uptake of AAA screening can be improved, as the public awareness of AAA screening is less in comparison to other screening programmes, specifically within certain groups of the population.”
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here