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A team of scientists in the US UU has designed a portable device that can "capture" cancer cells directly from the blood, without the need for biopsies, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature.
The research, developed at the University of Michigan, tested the effectiveness of this prototype on animal models, which could help doctors improve their diagnoses and treatments, according to experts. "Nobody wants to do a biopsy, if we can get enough cancer cells in the blood, we can use them to know the tumor's biology and determine the type of care," Daniel F. Hayes, an expert, said in a statement. in bad cancer and lead author of the study.
The device is slightly larger than a box of matches, with dimensions of 6.98 cm x 5.08 cm and 2.54 cm, and is connected by a catheter to the vein the patient to "capture" continuously for about two hours, a volume of blood greater than that of biopsies.
According to the experts, in their tests on animals, the chip that incorporates this new small portable device has been multiplied by 3.5 by the number of cells captured per millimeter of blood, compared to conventional methods.
Some samples
They remember that tumors can release more than 1,000 cancer cells per minute into the blood, but current procedures for capturing these cells work with very small blood samples taken from patients. As a result, blood samples give negative results.
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