Infrared imaging shines light on biomarkers in cancer cells

In Britain, one-in-eight men will develop prostate cancer during their lifetime and in the US  over 174,000 men are predicted to be diagnosed with the disease this year.

Ji-Xin Cheng, adjunct professor of Purdue University’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Chemistry, says a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine found that 1,410 men need to be screened and 48 additional cases of prostate cancer need to be treated to prevent only one death.

“The current examination isn’t precise, so there’s a lot of surgery because doctors can’t tell when there’s a large amount of cancer, whether it’s aggressive or benign,” Cheng said in a statement.

New infrared chemical imaging work involving research by Cheng and Ali Shakouri, the Mary Jo and Robert L. Kirk Director of the Birck Nanotechnology Center in Purdue’s Discovery Park, could change this by allowing better microscopic studies of tissue to detect what anomalies exist and reduce unnecessary surgeries.