Fingertip Smears Screening to Detect Breast Cancer

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Fingertip Smear Screening to Detect Breast Cancer

• IRAS ID

  364664

• Contact name

  Lynda Wyld

• Contact email

  l.wyld@sheffield.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

• Duration of Study in the UK

  2 years, 6 months, 4 days

• Research summary

  Each year approximately 55,000 new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in the UK, making it the most common cancer in British women1.
  Mammography and biopsy are the gold standard for diagnosis of early breast cancer with serial CT scans used for disease monitoring in advanced breast cancer. Some women find exposure of their breasts for mammography culturally unacceptable and there is the need to develop non-invasive and rapid tests for screening, diagnostic and monitoring purposes.
  The project will evaluate the role of mass spectrometry of sweat derived from fingertip smears in the screening, diagnosis and monitoring of breast cancer. The technique will analyse fingertip secretions from patients with and without breast cancer to detect a specific pattern of molecular markers to detect breast cancer. Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (MALDI MS) will recover cancer signatures, assisted by machine learning to discriminate between women with or without breast cancer.
  The study will recruit 200 patients, 80 with advanced breast cancer, 80 with newly diagnosed breast cancer and 40 healthy controls from breast clinics in Doncaster. Women will be invited to give fingertip smears. The smears are painless and involve gently pressing the fingertips onto a specially made aluminium slide. Samples will then be analysed at Sheffield Hallam University using MALDI-MS.
  This is a follow-on study of a previous confidence in concept MRC funded ‘proof of concept’ study, to validate our previous findings. Our initial study showed sensitivity and specificity of ~ 98%. We now need to validate these findings on a second cohort before seeking a much larger grant to take this to clinical application across the NHS. This project will therefore recruit a further cohort of 200 patients, undertake further development and refinements of the laboratory assay, and attempt to replicate our previous findings
  

• REC name

  North East - Tyne & Wear South Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  26/NE/0023

• Date of REC Opinion

  26 Feb 2026

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion