JERUSALEM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Israeli researchers have developed a technology for early, rapid diagnosis of cancer, and for predicting the development of metastases, reported on Friday by the Hebrew-language scientific website Hayadan.
The technology was developed by researchers at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion), in a study published in the journal Annals of Biomedical Engineering.
The spread of metastases to other organs is the leading cause of cancer mortality, due to the difficulty in predicting their formation, locating them on time and treating them effectively.
The new method will allow doctors to check the probability of the presence of metastases in other organs during cancer surgery or right after it.
The technology has been successfully tested on tissues taken from cancerous tumors, providing reliable information as to whether metastases will develop or already developed.
This is a faster test compared with existing ones, taking about three hours in the lab, while its effectiveness does not depend on early information about the tumor.
The technology is based on mechanical measurements of the behavior of cells in tissue samples on a dedicated platform with gel surfaces that mimic tissues in the body.
The platform makes it possible to examine the properties of the cells, such as shape, internal arrangement and the forces they exert on the gel.
It was found that cells with high metastatic potential are stronger, and therefore succeed in applying pressure to the gel and penetrating it.
Thus, the more cells from the sample penetrate, the greater the probability that metastases will form.
Based on the metastatic potential of cells in sample, measured by this method, doctors may be able to match effective personal treatments to patients. Enditem
