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(dr) Sam Gambhir
A simulation of this magnetic thread that could be used to detect cancer
Researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine in the United States United, have developed a magnetic wire that could be used to detect cancer cells.
The idea is that this magnetic wire be inserted into the vein of a patient and then found cancerous cells that could be in the bloodstream. For the moment, this technique has only been tested on pigs but has detected 10 to 80 times more cells tumor cells than current methods of detecting cancer by blood, making it a tool powerful to diagnose the disease earlier.
The cells that this magnetic wire captures are those that cross the bloodstream freely, known as circulating tumor cells and that can serve as biomarkers of cancer, signaling the presence of the disease.
However, these circulating cells are rare and therefore a normal blood sample normally does not detect them – after all, we are talking about a few milliliters of the total volume of blood that, in humans adult, is about five liters.
It is here that this magnetic wire can make a difference. First, the researchers inserted into the pigs special nanoparticles with magnetic properties and an antibody that binds to circulating tumor cells.
They then inserted the thread into a vein near the animal's ear. similar to the veins of a human's arm, and when the tumor cells floated by the wire, which is about the length of a little finger and the thickness of a clip, they adhered to this material. It was then that the magnetic wire was removed from the veins of the pigs, with tumor cells "trapped" in . "We believe that we would need to take 80 blood samples to get what this thread does in 20 minutes," says Sam Gambhir one of the researchers in the study. "We therefore hope that this new approach can enrich our ability to detect cancer and give us a better understanding of how rare these cells are and when they appear when cancer is present."
In the future, researchers believe that this technique can also be used to collect genetic information about tumors located in places where it is difficult to perform a biopsy or to check whether a particular treatment works or not
] Or even become a treatment per se. "If we succeed in really sucking the cancer cells, it acts almost like a filter that catches them and prevents them from spreading to other parts of the body," suggests Gambhir.
For now, the team is preparing the technique to be tested in humans, which involves understanding what happens to the magnetic nanoparticles that remain in the body. According to the scientist, they are currently testing on rats and until now they have not been toxic and even disintegrated within a few weeks.
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