Medicine - A more sensitive exam? - Some breast-test kits might aid in detection. But researchers wonder if monthly self-exams are even needed.

Maybe a powerful weapon in the fight against breast cancer. Maybe a gimmick. Maybe a tool for a job that doesn't need to be done.

The device -- sold in several breast self-exam kits -- is said to reduce friction between skin on the fingers and skin on the breasts, increasing sensitivity and making it possible to detect even very small lumps.

Among the most visible promoters of the device is singer Olivia Newton-John, part owner of Liv International, an Upland-based company that distributes the device in a self-exam kit called Liv Aid.

Newton-John found a malignant lump during a self-exam in 1992 and thinks that may have saved her life.

"I'm 58 and lucky to get there," she says. "I want other women to have that opportunity."

But even as promoters of the kits work to make breast self-exams easier and more sensitive -- and more common among women -- many cancer researchers and doctors say there's no evidence that careful monthly self-exams actually save lives. Further, they say, such exams increase unnecessary testing and biopsies, as well as anxiety.

"For years, people thought they could only be beneficial, at worst not helpful, but at least not harmful," says Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C. "But as often happens, intuition served us poorly. If everything in medicine were intuitive, we wouldn't need science."

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Languishing device

The polyurethane-and-gel sandwich for use in performing breast self-exams was patented in 1987 as the Touch Enhancing Pad. Often described as "a magnifying glass for your fingers," the simple product won its deviser, Don Perry of Decatur, Ill., an award from the Intellectual Property Owners Foundation as Outstanding American Inventor of 1989.

But it didn't win FDA approval for over-the-counter sale until 1997 and has yet to catch on with women, even though it's been sold under various brands and in various guises -- as a pad, a glove and even a T-shirt.

"We keep running into walls," says Ulli Haslacher, president of Liv International, noting that the kit can be hard to find in stores, people don't always know what it is and not everyone can afford it at a cost of about $25.