CEO

Shiho Azuma

I was motivated to start this company when, as a high school student, I lost my mother to cancer. My mother unexpectedly suffered from a highly malignant brain tumor which affects only 1 out of 100,000 people. The extremely low 5 year survival rate of this type of cancer saw her pass away at the age of 46 after battling the disease for a year and a half.

Even back then, I knew that the survival rate of the disease was low, but we still tried various treatments. As my mother’s treatment progressed, she lost weight, lost her hair, and did not want to go out anymore. This fact that we lost her as a family member deeply changed my family. Because of this experience, I wanted to spare others from having to go through the same kind of experiences as I did. This spirit is what led to me start my own business. However, watching my mother live almost exactly the length of time the doctor initially stated led to me realize the limitations of current medical treatment. As a result, I decided on a field other than medicine after graduating from high school.

Not that long ago I heard about ultrasonic CT techniques from my husband, who is studying medical ultrasound at the University of Tokyo. While talking about the concept of breast cancer examination and diagnostic devices, we realized that, unlike many other cancers, breast cancer affects a larger percentage of younger adults. If the cancer is found at an early stage, the survival rate is actually quite high, and I realized that the earlier we could detect breast cancer, the further we could reduce the mortality rate and shorten the treatment period, unlike the disease which affected my mother.

Breast cancer is a curable disease now. Their 30s, 40s, and 50s are times in women’s lives when they have many choices and opportunities, such as a career, romance, marriage, childbirth, and child rearing. With our device, I hope to give affected women a chance to live as well as they did before being affected by cancer, because no woman should have to miss out on the great opportunities of life.