Surgical 'iKnife' promises accurate cancer surgery
Source: Agencies |
July 19, 2013, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
SCIENTISTS have created an "intelligent" surgical knife that can detect in seconds whether tissue being cut is cancerous, promising more effective and accurate surgery in future.
The device, built by researchers at London's Imperial College, could allow doctors to cut back on additional operations to remove further pieces of cancerous tumors.
The technology - effectively merging an electrosurgical knife that cuts through tissue using heat with a mass spectrometer for chemical analysis - has also been shown to be able to distinguish beef from horsemeat.
Surgeons often find it impossible to tell by sight where tumors end and healthy tissue begins, so some cancer cells are often left behind. A fifth of breast cancer patients who have lumpectomy surgery need a second operation.
The "iKnife" is designed to get round the problem by sampling smoke given off as tissue is cut through using an electric current to see if it is cancerous.
In the first study to test the device in patients, the iKnife diagnosed tissue samples from 91 patients with 100 percent accuracy, researchers at Imperial College London reported in Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday.
Currently, removed tissue can be sent for analysis while the patient is under anaesthetic. But each test takes half an hour, while the iKnife provides feedback in under three seconds.
It does this by analyzing biological information from burning tissue and comparing the findings to a database of biological fingerprints from tumors and healthy tissue.
"It's a really exciting innovation and a very promising technique for all types of surgery," said Emma King, a head and neck surgeon at Southampton Hospital, England, who was not involved in the research.
Zoltan Takats of Imperial College, who invented the device, said he aimed to test it in a study of between 1,000 and 1,500 patients.
That process is likely to take two or three years and only then will the iKnife be submitted for regulatory approval, paving the way for its commercialisation.
Takats has founded a Budapest-based company to develop the product and expects to strike a partnership deal with a major technology company.
The experimental version of cost around 200,000 pounds (US$300,000) to build. Takats said the price would come down once it enters production.
The device, built by researchers at London's Imperial College, could allow doctors to cut back on additional operations to remove further pieces of cancerous tumors.
The technology - effectively merging an electrosurgical knife that cuts through tissue using heat with a mass spectrometer for chemical analysis - has also been shown to be able to distinguish beef from horsemeat.
Surgeons often find it impossible to tell by sight where tumors end and healthy tissue begins, so some cancer cells are often left behind. A fifth of breast cancer patients who have lumpectomy surgery need a second operation.
The "iKnife" is designed to get round the problem by sampling smoke given off as tissue is cut through using an electric current to see if it is cancerous.
In the first study to test the device in patients, the iKnife diagnosed tissue samples from 91 patients with 100 percent accuracy, researchers at Imperial College London reported in Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday.
Currently, removed tissue can be sent for analysis while the patient is under anaesthetic. But each test takes half an hour, while the iKnife provides feedback in under three seconds.
It does this by analyzing biological information from burning tissue and comparing the findings to a database of biological fingerprints from tumors and healthy tissue.
"It's a really exciting innovation and a very promising technique for all types of surgery," said Emma King, a head and neck surgeon at Southampton Hospital, England, who was not involved in the research.
Zoltan Takats of Imperial College, who invented the device, said he aimed to test it in a study of between 1,000 and 1,500 patients.
That process is likely to take two or three years and only then will the iKnife be submitted for regulatory approval, paving the way for its commercialisation.
Takats has founded a Budapest-based company to develop the product and expects to strike a partnership deal with a major technology company.
The experimental version of cost around 200,000 pounds (US$300,000) to build. Takats said the price would come down once it enters production.
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