The Cancer Answer?

Less intrusive biopsy? This is a method of analysis that still requires a sample to be excised by some other means - the laser 'vapourizes' the sample and then sprays with methanol, electrically charges etc etc (nicely described in the article) - this is not going to happen in vivo.

So it doesn't really speak to methods of biopsy - except that it may be able to use a smaller volume of tissue. But that can be a problem too - what if you miss the cancer in the smaller biopsy sample, and just test a little normal tissue? So I think an ordinary biopsy sample size will be required, and second, for a testing method that 'vapourizes' ie destroys the sample, they will also have to take voucher specimens to be stained and looked at and stored or documented in the conventional ways for verification.

Better focus on diseased tissue? I wonder if cancer surgery will ever go this route - it is conceivable, but the general rule afaik is to take generous amounts of normal tissue in the margins of the surgery, to make sure you got every bit. If samples could be tested on the spot, during the surgery, yes it could help to limit the collateral damage, to resolve any doubts about packing up an extra organ or two while you're in there, just to be on the safe side. For benefits of the 'real time' aspect, the operating room is an obvious place.

Meanwhile, the ability to assure or improve accuracy in testing for diseased vs normal cells has yet to be tested.

This is a fascinating test method all the same, and I wonder if it could give HPLC a run for the money, just for testing of chemicals. Maybe they should focus on the much neglected environmental health area - the history in hair and fingernails.

hmmm...real time testing.... how long till they get these in every airport, I wonder?

Hi,

the problem is to find the early stages.

One cell is near 5µm diameter.

One (1M) million cells is near 500µm diameter - still undetectable today.

1G cells (10⁹) will occupy near 5mm in diameter - detectable with USPIO - ultra-small magnetic particle (magnetic resonance) imaging. This was not approved by FDA as one non-expected death occurred at a test. Nobody knows what happened but FDA blames the method.

So ordinary Technetium-scintigraphy will be used for the next decade or so: 10 to 15 mm cancer needed to get a sufficient resolution: much time wasted.

A new method with an old radioactive marker will come up: Gallium 68 PET imaging.

There is a new high purity Ga68 source available that is suitable for smaller organisations and gets rid of frequent high cost radioactive material transportation.

(See: www.eurotope.com)

PET-imaging is positron-emission-tomography.

The radioactive material will be used either pure - so the Ga binds to the cancer (and to sites of inflammation and/or bacterial activity) or with chemical attachments that prefer to bind to a specific cancer.

European Patent EP 1 820 197 B1, Inventor is Frank Rösch.

This is an important step towards better diagnostics but still not at all sufficient.

Detection sensitivity will be near or below 5mm diameter.

To see single cells: neither possible nor useful.

Target single cells with specialised coupling agents: useful and in progress.

Anybody who wants to put significant money into a high risc - likely very high gain clinical trial, (adenocarcinomas) please contact me.

RHABE

The thing about cancer is that it is a living process, in the same way that, say, a Board meeting is a living process.

Right now our disease model is basically biochemical. But when you are dealing with living, thinking entities, you know that more than just biochemistry is going on.

I am sure there is much more to explore just on the level of biochemistry in diseases like cancer. And I am sure these technological refinements will help.

But we won't fully understand living processes until we add more "live" components to the model and develop ways to successfully measure them. I am specifically referring to cognitive components; thoughts and intentions.

Eventually we will need to understand how thought contributes to the development of disease. And above that, how intention (and similar factors) contributes to the development of thought.

People who have looked in this direction are saying that they are finding mental states that are more disease-prone than others. Or that a certain set of considerations will tend to result in a certain type of disease developing. I am not saying that medicine has to go there. But I am saying that science needs to be able to understand these factors.

It is crazy to study living systems totally on the basis of biochemistry. That model is just too simplistic. Just as you could not predict what a Board of Directors will decide just by studying what they ate that morning, we won't fully understand disease without using a model that includes cognitive factors.