Wearable device captures cancer cells
A prototype wearable device from the US continuously collects live cancer cells directly from a patient's blood, an advance that could mitigate against biopsy.
Developed by a team of engineers and doctors at the University of Michigan, it could help doctors diagnose and treat cancer more effectively.
"Nobody wants to have a biopsy. If we could get enough cancer cells from the blood, we could use them to learn about the tumour biology and direct care for the patients. That's the excitement of why we're doing this," said Daniel F. Hayes, M.D., the Stuart B. Padnos Professor of Breast Cancer Research at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center and senior author on the paper in Nature Communications.
According to the University of Michigan, tumours can release over 1,000 cancer cells into the bloodstream in a single minute. Current methods of capturing cancer cells from blood rely on samples from the patient - usually no more than a tablespoon taken in a single draw. Some blood draws come back with no cancer cells, even in patients with advanced cancer, and a typical sample contains no more than 10 cancer cells.
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