( CNN ) -- Bras can do miraculous things these days ( thank you underwire ) . But can they detect cancer ? That 's the claim for First Warning Systems new bra , equipped with a series of sensors embedded in the cups that pick up temperature changes in breast tissue and , says the Reno , Nev.-based company , provide a thermal fingerprint that can alert doctors to the presence of malignant cells . According to the company 's website , the data generated by the sports bra can predict the presence of breast cancer with 90 % specificity and sensitivity . Women wear it for 12 hours to accumulate a stable enough reading of temperature , and the measurements are fed into the company 's algorithm that then spits out a result : normal , benign , suspected for breast tissue abnormalities , or probable for breast tissue abnormalities . Sounds like a good idea , right ? Except that the concept of using temperature to detect disease may not be ready for prime time just yet . `` Hypothetically , it 's conceivable that malignant processes would have a temperature gradient compared to non-malignant tissues , '' says Dr. Therese Bevers , medical director of the cancer prevention center at the Univ . of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center . `` But that gradient may not be very large . '' ( MORE : A Fashionable Fitâ€ ” high-tech athletic gear ) The idea of using thermograms to ferret out abnormally growing cells is already being used with an imaging device that takes a temperature reading of breast tissue . Tumors need nutrients to grow , and they start to siphon these off from their own blood supply , which they start to build as they amass more and more abnormally growing cells . All of this metabolic work generates heat , and it 's this temperature change that thermograms â€ ” and the First Warning bra 's sensors â€ ” are designed to pick up . But when these profiles , which show `` hot '' and `` cold '' spots that are supposed to correlate to cancerous and non-malignant tissue , respectively , are compared to mammogram , MRI and ultrasound tests , their findings do n't always match up . `` We see some thermograms come back as abnormal , and we do all kinds of imaging with mammogram , ultrasound and MRI and we follow the women and nothing develops , '' says Bevers . `` And we have women with breast cancers that are not seen on the thermograms . It 's not perfect , and needs to undergo much more rigorous testing to understand what role temperature readings can play in cancer screening . '' Even if the readings provide a positive result , and if , as the company says , the tumors are at their earliest stages and barely detectable as a mass , it 's not clear what doctors can do for women at that point . Surgery is n't an option until tumors reach a certain size that can be identified and removed , and radiation and chemotherapy are too toxic to start before cancers reach a certain threshold to justify the side effects . What do doctors do with a positive test ? For now , they would likely have women come in for more frequent mammograms , MRI or ultrasound testing , to evaluate whether their abnormally growing cells morph into tumors or not . If that 's the case , most women will probably have had their tumors detected by one of these methods anyway , even if they had n't used the bra . Already , the latest data raise questions about the efficacy of mammograms in women in their 40s ; the United States Preventive Services Task Force recently recommended that women wait until they are 50 to start yearly screenings , because studies showed that the costs of screening women in their 40s , including additional testing and complications caused by these supplemental procedures , did not save more lives . So while the idea of wearing a sports bra for 12 hours to detect breast cancer certainly sounds appealing , the bra may be a bit ahead of itself . It 's not clear yet whether predicting , and ideally treating breast cancer with the bra can reduce deaths from the disease , or help women avoid more advanced and aggressive cancers . `` We really need to have more solid data before we start adding on tests , especially when we have tests [ like the mammogram , MRI and ultrasound ] , '' says Bevers . Those tests are n't perfect either , but they do have a track record of helping to save lives . Related Topics : Fashion & Beauty . & copy 2012 TIME , Inc. TIME is a registered trademark of Time Inc. Used with permission .
New ##born has sensors that pick up any changes in breast tissue . Its manufacturer , First Warning Systems , says it can alert patients to cancer cells . Doctors say the system is n't ready to be fully trusted yet .