Surgery : a pen detects cancer cells in 10 seconds

poznyakov/Epictura

Published the 07.09.2017 at 11h32

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Keywords :

cancerchirurgiediagnostic

“If you talk to patients at their output an operation of a cancerous tumor, most will tell you right away,” I hope that the surgeon removed all the cancer, ” says Livia Eberlin, a chemist at the university of Texas at Austin (United States). The surgeons are also interested, but during the procedure, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish cancer cells from other, and therefore to determine with precision the area to be removed.

To facilitate their task, Livia Eberlin and his team have invented a small device, which they have christened MasSpec Pen. It looks like a pen and provides this critical information in only 10 seconds. It would be more accurate to 96 %.

150 times faster

Today, when the surgeon operates on a tumor, and that he has a doubt about the boundaries of the area to remove, it asks what’s called an examination frozen section. He collects a piece of tissue and a pathologist to perform a quick scan.

But the verdict takes about 30 minutes, or between 150 and 200 times longer than the MasSpec Pen. It is not always reliable either. In 10 to 20 % of the cases, the results would be difficult to interpret.

More accurate, more secure

The time savings alone provides several benefits : the procedure can be more easily repeated, and the procedure shortened. Thus, the risks of infection and complications of anesthesia are reduced.

“As soon as it is possible to improve the accuracy, timeliness or safety of a surgical operation, it would be a shame, writes Dr. James Suliburk, surgeon, disease specialist endocrine at Baylor College of Medicine, and who participated in the study. This technology is the three. “