A new handheld device that uses magnetic nanopartices in a microchip could allow clinicians to diagnose cancer from the bedside. Current cancer-screening results can take several days, but this new portable device that plugs into a smart phone reduces the time it takes to detect cancer to just an hour. The latest prototype, which takes a small tissue sample and analyzes it for telltale cancer proteins, was tested on 50 patients with gastric-related cancer, and it detected malignancies with 96 percent accuracy. The device was developed by scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, both in the United States. Hakho Lee, an assistant professor in the Center for Systems Biology at MGH, said their device may perform better than current methods because it reduces the possibility of human error. “In our design, we inject everything from the patient into the device, and then it will give out a result,” says Lee. Lee said his group is currently adapting the device to detect proteins associated with tuberculosis and will soon begin clinical trials to test another prototype for ovarian cancer. Their findings were published last week in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The article can be viewed online at the link below.
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/32443/