Researchers from the Philadelphia-based Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania combined a cancer-targeted near-infrared tracer with a needle-based confocal laser endomicroscopy system to guide an imaging agent during biopsies, which lit up cancer cells, allowing real-time diagnosis to be completed.
With the new technology, malignant or non-malignant tissue biopsies were detected with 96 percent accuracy and made no false negatives on 20 human biopsy specimens.
“The emerging ability to light up a single cell that may be invisible to the eye provides great opportunity to give patients the best chance at an early diagnosis before cancer spreads,” said Gregory Kennedy, MD, a resident in general surgery at Penn Medicine. “This unique approach has the potential to improve the information we get from biopsies and it may increase our chances of identifying cancer early.”
The researchers hope this approach can be used to help with earlier diagnosis of other cancer types, as current medical technology does not provide real-time diagnostic information during biopsy.
Editor’s note: This article was updated May 19 at 10:10 a.m. CT.
