New technique targets cancer tissues

A Purdue University innovation developed for brain tumour surgery is being expanded to provide doctors with an assessment tool to preserve, analyse and remove cancer tissues.

The technology was developed in the Aston Lab of Purdue’s College of Science,  which is led by Graham Cooks.

It is claimed that the team’s mass spectrometry imaging technique could determine if microscopic cancerous tissue is still present in a sample, and provide more information to influence a surgeon’s decisions regarding further tissue removal.

Team member Valentina Pirro, a research scientist in Purdue’s Department of Chemistry, said in a statement that other mass spectrometry techniques have limitations.

“Mass spectrometry can identify and measure molecules within a tissue by measuring a signal that relates to the mass and structure of the molecule. It can be used in cancer diagnostics because it’s able to monitor the differential distribution of lipids or malformed metabolites that distinguish normal and cancerous tissue,” she said. “With some form of mass spectrometry imaging, the chemicals or solvents used in the process can often destroy the tissue sample. Essentially, you have one shot at getting the data and then the sample is gone.”