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The end of invasive biopsies? Scientists create a wearable device that captures living cancer cells in the blood and that works three times, as well as a syringe
- Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed an electrical sensing device
- It collects cancer cells over a period of a few hours instead of a single sample.
- Scientists say that it can collect more than three times more than a blood test
Traditional biopsies to diagnose cancer may soon be over after the invention of a new portable gadget.
Researchers say that the waist-length blood screening device can harvest more than three times more cancer cells than a standard blood test.
Therefore, the gadget could help doctors detect cancer in the blood that standard blood tests can miss, thus avoiding the use of invasive biopsies.
The device works by clinging to a vein and capturing the cancer cells as they pass through, instead of collecting a pool of blood and hoping to find one.
Tested on dogs, the gadget could be, in medical terms, the difference between CCTV that takes pictures on a regular basis and the one that records a video.
The portable machine (shown) plugs into the vein of a patient to collect cancer cells continuously over a long period of time instead of relying on a single sample taken during a blood test.
Scientists at the University of Michigan have created a prototype device that, he hopes, will make cancer diagnoses more accurate and less invasive.
It is important to measure cancer cells in the blood, said the team, as these moving cells are the most dangerous and most likely to cause new tumors.
Thus, people with high numbers of circulating tumor cells are more likely to have a dangerous cancer that spreads – metastatic type.
And since many cancer cells can not survive in the blood, it can be difficult to find them.
Tumors can release more than 1,000 cancer cells in the blood in one minute, but current methods of counting them rely on blood samples, which usually consist of one tablespoon of blood.
Some samples do not contain cancer cells, even if the patient has advanced disease, and a typical sample will have a maximum of 10 cancer cells.
The lead developer, Dr. Sunitha Nagrath, said:[This is] the difference between a security camera that captures a door every five minutes or takes a video.
"If an intruder enters between snapshots, you will not know it."
In addition to taking blood from the vein of a patient, another common method for getting live cancer cells is to perform a biopsy.
It involves taking a sample of a tumor, usually under local or general anesthesia, and sending it to lab tests – this is an invasive surgical procedure.
The team tested their device on dogs that received an injection of human cancer cells, which are destroyed by the immune system of dogs in a few hours.
During the two hours following the injections, the dogs underwent a blood screening test with the aid of a continuous apparatus and blood samples taken every 20 minutes, then subjected to an examination by a doctor. similar device.
The continuous test gadget detected 3.5 times more cancer cells per milliliter than the more traditional method.
And it is small enough to be worn on the wrist of an inpatient, who could be logged in for a few hours to provide a sample.
Dr. Tae Hyun Kim said, "The hardest part was getting all the components into one device, then making sure that the blood would not clot, that the cells would not clog the chip, and that all the device would be completely sterile. & # 39;
To remedy this, the researchers mixed blood with heparin, an anticoagulant drug, inside the machine.
Dr. Daniel Hayes, who was the lead author of the outcome document, hopes that human trials can begin in the next three to five years.
He said, "Nobody wants to do a biopsy.
"If we could get enough cancer cells in the blood, we could use them to learn more about the biology of the tumor and direct care to patients.
"It's the excitement of why we are doing this."
The research was published in Nature Communications.
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