Boston researchers have developed a test that can identify minute amounts of tumor cells floating in the blood of cancer patients, a discovery that could lead to better treatments with fewer side effects.
The technology, invented at Massachusetts General Hospital, uses a microchip scanner no bigger than a business card to analyze a patient’s blood, hunting for stray cells shed by tumors. The device is so powerful that it can detect a single cancer cell among 1 billion healthy blood cells.
Once those cells are captured, their genetic fingerprints can help determine the most effective drug for a patient whose cancer has already begun spreading, and also show whether medication has lost its power. The technology is now being tried in patients whose cancer has already spread, but scientists hope in the future the chip will be able to detect cancer’s spread before secondary tumors have become established.
Although the device is not yet ready for widespread use, a report posted online yesterday by the New England Journal of Medicine showed that it successfully identified migrating cancer cells in lung cancer patients and spotted important genetic quirks in those cells.
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This, and the recent discovery that tumors grow by having their own “stem cells” (that can be targeted), are great developments.
Perhaps I’m over optimistic, but I think people 10-20 years from now are going to look back and wonder how we coped with widespread, fatal cancers.