Xabier Insausti, researcher of CEIT.

Photo: Diario Vasco

Xabier Insausti, researcher of CEIT of the University of Navarra, has developed a computer application to improve the appointment system of national programs for early detection of breast cancer. As he explains, it is a new system that would send messages from notice by computer to the telephone of the woman scheduled for the test and on the appointed date. This could improve the current statistics of the association Española Contra el Cáncer, which indicate that one out of every three women at risk for the disease does not go for a check-up.

"In some cases," says the scientist, "the system would send a message to remind them of the first mammogram, while in others it would inform those who forgot to attend their subsequent appointments of the need to reschedule them.

The program is still at an early stage and they hope to have it ready for the 2010-2011 academic year, reports Xabier Insausti. In fact, there are already several North American hospitals interested in using the application: "The benefit is threefold. On the one hand, women are promptly notified on the dates they consider most convenient; the system ensures that no woman is left without a mammogram and, finally, health center employees are not required to spend time making phone calls or sending letters.

The researcher became interested in this topic during his one-year stay at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the reference letter international engineering centers. The center had been collaborating with Massachusetts General Hospital to compile data from attendance to mammography screening since 1985 and extrapolate it with breast cancer mortality statistics. The conclusion was that increased screening would reduce breast cancer deaths in the United States by 40-50%.

Thus, the institution began to work on improving the appointment system, with the partnership of Tecnun-Escuela de Ingenieros de la Universidad de Navarra, and CEIT.