Magnetic Probe Detects Metastases in Breast Cancer
Utilizing nanotechnology and advanced sensing based on high-temperature superconductors, Audrius Brazdeikis (research assistant professor of physics in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Houston) and Quentin Pankhurst (a professor of physics from the University College of London) have developed a novel handheld tool that surgeons can use for staging and treating various cancers (including breast cancer).
The researchers produced an ultrasensitive magnetic probe to detect minuscule magnetic fields in the body. The probe is a supersensitive magnetometer — an instrument used to track the presence of clinically introduced magnetic nanoparticles.
During breast cancer surgery, a surgeon will inject a magnetic nanoparticle dye, already approved as an imaging contrast agent by the Food and Drug Administration, into the tumor or into tissues surrounding the tumor.
The ultrasensitive magnetic probe promises to be more accurate, cost-effective and safer than existing methods and will allow surgeons to more effectively locate the sentinel lymph node (the first lymph node to which a tumor’s metastasizing cancer cells will drain).
The probe is now being tested in a clinical trial of women undergoing breast cancer surgery at University College Hospital, London. But of course, it would take awhile before this tool can be widely used in breast cancer patients.
Find more details from the full report.
[In photo: Physicist Audrius Brazdeikis, right, head of the Biomedical Imaging Group at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston, confers with London surgeon Dr. Michael Douek about a unique procedure for staging and treating breast cancer. UH and University College of London teams developed a probe to enable surgeons to better detect the spread of breast cancer, and Douek is conducting a clinical trial of the device in England. (Credit: Mark Lacy)]
Tags: breast-cancer, cancer-test, magnetic-probeRelated Stories
POSTED IN: on breast cancer, on cancer diagnostics
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