Dotplot home breast health monitoring tool wins UK James Dyson Award

In the UK alone, breast cancer accounted for around 11,500 deaths in 2021, making it the nations’ second most common cause of cancer death.

Despite this, many women fail to perform their monthly checks, with 64 per cent of women aged 18-35 admitting they do not regularly conduct self-examinations. If breast cancer is detected at the earliest stage then almost all women survive, making early detection vital.

Recent graduates of Innovation Design Engineering at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art, Debra Babalola and Shefali Bohra identified different methods and conflicting information advising women to perform self-checks, which can often lead to women not performing routine checks all together. Dotplot aims to reverse this by enabling and encouraging women to stick to a regular breast-self check routine.

When Dotplot is in use, the user builds a personalised map of their torso by providing their bra size, breast shape and by sliding the handheld device to rescale the baseline model. Once set up, the app guides women through the self-check by showing which areas they need to scan. A sound signal is emitted to record the tissue composition at each site. The point that the user needs to check flashes on the app until a reading has been taken. Each month's reading is compared to the previously recorded readings to highlight any abnormalities developing in the tissue. Users will be notified if there are any suspicious changes compared to the previous month and advised to visit a healthcare professional for further investigation.