Christchurch company to develop new cancer screening system

Each year more than 570,000 New Zealand women are screened for breast cancer. Photo / Thinkstock

A Christchurch start-up is developing a radiation-free breast cancer screening system that will perform better in hard-to-diagnose cases.

Tiro Lifesciences, a company part-owned by the University of Canterbury, is developing a screening system to detect cancer in dense breast tissue.

Chief executive Marcus Haggers said about 40 per cent of women currently screened have dense breast tissue.

This tissue has an increased risk of breast cancer but is also more difficult to screen using X-ray mammography.

"Healthy dense tissue has virtually the same X-ray absorption characteristics as cancerous tissue, making it difficult or impossible to spot certain cancer cases on a mammogram image."

The Tiro Lifesciences system does not rely on absorption of X-rays, or any other radiation source, so it was not affected by the same issues, he said.

"We carried out a small clinical study last year which has improved the system in preparation for a larger clinical trial later this year."

The University of Canterbury is a shareholder in Tiro Lifesciences, as is the University's distinguished professor Geoff Chase, whose team of researchers has developed the technology.

The early-stage medical diagnostic company last year received the first repayable grant of up to $450,000 over two years from Callaghan Innovation under its expanded business incubator network.

Repayable grants are available only to start-up businesses commercialising complex intellectual property, sourced primarily from publicly funded research organisations such as universities and Crown research institutes.

Each year more than 570,000 New Zealand women are screened for breast cancer, the most common cancer in New Zealand women.

More than 2700 women in New Zealand are diagnosed and 600 die from the disease each year.