According to army surgeon Colonel Craig Shriver the US military is funding a trial of unclassified defense software used to track missiles in treating breast cancer. It is hoped that the technique will reduce the disfigurement of surgery.

The software is designed to identify active warheads amongst a large number of dummy missiles and Dr Shriver the same principle can be applied to cancer cells and normal cells.

"It is very exciting because we found that the technology, which is basically a logarithm, is very accurate and it is a neat example of how defence technology can be turned towards another use that could help millions of people," said Shriver.