March 4, 2020
In the last two days of our campaign, we will provide a tour of the BMIL laboratory and 3D photography demonstration to anyone who donates $350 or more and can provide their own transportation to the UT campus. We're excited to show off our research and demonstrate how we are helping breast cancer survivors by providing peace of mind in their recovery.
Reminder: We are matching every donor through the end of the campaign with a set of knitted breast prosthetics for women recovering from breast cancer surgery!
Please donate and ask your friends and family to donate too!
Thank you!
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March 3, 2020
We're in the last days of our campaign and still have 25% to go! Krista Nicklaus will make and donate a set of knitted breast prosthetics for women currently recovering from breast cancer surgery for every donor from March 3rd to March 6th 9am. She already has 4 to make! Donate now to help future breast cancer survivors through our research and women right now recovering from treatment.
Thank you to all of our friends who have donated already. Please text, call, facebook message, tweet at your friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances to donate too! All gifts help us help breast cancer patients.
Thanks!
Mia, Krista, and Haoqi
Breast Decisions Research Team
Almost all women who are considering breast reconstruction want to see pictures of other women who have been through the surgery, but only about half are shown pictures by their healthcare providers. Moreover, most women would prefer to see pictures of other patients who are like themselves (similar body shape and size).
In order to show women pictures of prior patients who are like them and to create personalized simulations, we need 3D photographs of breast cancer patients. Previously, we partnered with a manufacturer to create a custom 3D scanning system for our research. Our current scanner needs to be replaced, but fortunately there are now inexpensive commercial handheld 3D scanners due to recent advances in 3D photography.
We need a 3D scanner to take 3D photographs of breast cancer patients. Make a donation today to help us make that happen!
In addition to enabling near-term progress in our research, we are excited about the opportunity to transfer our methods to a more affordable 3D photography platform because that will increase the number of hospitals that could adopt our decision support system in the future.
About 1 in 8 U.S. women will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime.
The Women’s Health and Cancer Rights Act (1998) requires insurance providers to cover all stages of breast reconstruction, including symmetry procedures for the contralateral breast.
Your support will help us purchase a handheld 3D scanner to take 3D photographs of breast cancer patients.
Our research found that almost all women considering breast reconstruction surgery want to see pictures of other women’s reconstruction outcomes, but only about half (55%) are shown pictures by their healthcare providers.
We've mentored more than 140 undergraduate students in cancer research in the Biomedical Informatics Lab.
The average American knows about 600 people. How many of the 600 people you know are cancer survivors?
276,480 American women are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020
Each year, approximately 12,150 women under age 40 are diagnosed with breast cancer
The annual cost of training a graduate student in cancer research is $45,474