New device to detect cancer spread

The new device which can detect minute numbers of tumour cells circulating in the blood of lung cancer patients may one day make monitoring the disease as simple as taking a blood test, reported journal Nature.

In 2004, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a test to allow doctors to count the number of circulating tumour cells as a way of monitoring whether breast, colorectal or prostate cancer patients are responding to therapy. But the test does not collect sufficient numbers of tumour cells, or in sufficient purity, to perform genetic tests on the samples.

Credit: Jonathan Ashton/Science Photo Library

The new, improved version of the test will now enable doctors to perform genetic tests on these spreading cancer cells — potentially allowing them to decide which drugs might be most effective in stopping any tumours that might arise from the cells.

Whole article: http://www.nature.com