Cancer diagnosis currently relies on a biopsy procedure that is highly invasive and is only effective after the tumor has grown to about 3 cm, or even when it has already become metastatic. Despite this fact, however, doctors and other health experts agree that the early detection of cancer is key to greatly increasing the patient's chances of survival. Now a team of researchers says that they have developed an early detection device for lung cancer-and could quite possibly be used for other cancers as well-that does away with the invasive technique and only requires a small drop of the patient's blood.
The idea of using disease biomarkers in human exosomes has long been and area of particular interest for scientists. Exosomes are tiny vesicles found inside cells, including cancer cells, that eliminate wastes as well as carrying messages from one cell to another. Scientists believe that analyzing the contents of these exosomes, particularly and nucleic acids, will prove to be invaluable in detecting diseases earlier as well as in providing more relevant insight into the disease process. The challenge that these scientists faced, however, is to develop a small enough technology that can target these tiny subcellular components and analyze them for disease biomarkers.
Using microfluidic technology, Prof. Yong Zeng from the University of Kansas and his team were able to develop what they call a "lab-on-a-chip" that is able to analyze exosome contents to aid the early detection of deadly cancers. The team has already successfully tested the device online cancer. This new device requires a single drop of the patient's blood, but produces the results faster, has a higher sensitivity, and is more cost-effective then it's highly invasive counterparts. Prof. Zeng explains the device as, "Essentially, it allows precise manipulation of minuscule fluid volumes down to one trillionth of a liter or less to Carry out multiple laboratory functions, such as example purification, running of chemical and biological reactions, and analytical measurement. In contrast [to a biopsy], our blood based test is minimally invasive, inexpensive, and more sensitive, thus suitable for large population screening to detect early-stage tumors."