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Portable medical devices

Portable AI tool helps triage breast cancer risk

Nature Reviews Bioengineering (2026)Cite this article

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Early detection of breast cancer substantially improves survival outcomes and typically relies on in-clinic mammography. However, many regions continue to face limited access and long delays for mammography screening. Now, writing in Technology in Cancer Research & Treatment, Maria Andrea Negret and team report the clinical evaluation of JULIETA, a portable, non-invasive, radiation-free device that uses bioimpedance spectroscopy and artificial intelligence (AI) to identify electrical tissue patterns associated with potentially malignant breast changes.

“JULIETA uses a standardized electrode applicator placed around the nipple to capture bioimpedance signals, which are then interpreted by a hierarchical chain of AI models,” explains Negret. The algorithms extract features related to tissue composition, such as density differences and structural changes, and integrate them into a multi-stage machine-learning framework, combining random forest classifiers and support vector machines with a Gaussian kernel. “The resulting output is a binary prioritization decision: whether a patient should be expedited for mammographic evaluation or managed as lower priority,” Negret adds.

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Original article

  • Negret, M. A. et al. Portable electrical impedance prescreening for breast tissue suspicious for malignancy: model optimization and clinical performance of the Julieta device in a multicenter cross-sectional study in Colombia. Technol. Cancer Res. Treat. https://doi.org/10.1177/15330338261422902 (2026)

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  1. Nature Reviews Bioengineering https://www.nature.com/natrevbioeng/

    Christine-Maria Horejs

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  1. Christine-Maria Horejs
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Correspondence to Christine-Maria Horejs.

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Horejs, CM. Portable AI tool helps triage breast cancer risk. Nat Rev Bioeng (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-026-00426-6

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