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Comment by yakito | Hacker News Reader

As a reference. Currently an MRI scan can go from $400-$2000 (mostly covered by insurance) https://scan.com/body-parts/breast

An MRI machine cost arounds $350.000 on average. https://www.blockimaging.com

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A device such as this would never replace an MRI scan. The information provided is for screening purposes, at best.

Also, diagnosis would typically be done using a mammography. The cost of such a scan is lower - around $100[0].

[0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4142190/

It doesn't have to replace it in all cases. If it can give a good indication that we don't have to do a MRI that is already a good thing.

That's right, that's typically what is meant by screening purposes [0], apologies if it wasn't clear.

[0] https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nhs-screening/

The unclear part was more the phrase "would never replace an MRI scan". But it's clear now.

Diagnosis is done via biopsy.

That is correct, my bad. The next screen after a test like this would likely be a mammography, and only after that would a biopsy be done if anything suspicious was seen.

Better reference would be an ELISA test (which is actually brought up as the reference in the paper)[^1]. That seems to also run about $5 per kit per antigen[^2]. However this device seems to only require the test strip to be replaced, whereas you can only run ELISA once per strip/reagents. Also note that ELISA is harder to run so you have personnel costs and also this device claims higher sensitivity.

[^1]: https://pubs.aip.org/avs/jvb/article/42/2/023202/3262988/Hig...

[^2]: https://www.thermofisher.com/elisa/product/ErbB2-HER2-Human-..., note that I didn't shop around for necessarily the best prices.

MRI is very rarely used for breast cancer screening. Mammography is much cheaper.

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