Hearing the Heartbeat of Cancer
October 19th 2006 02:04
Hearing the Heartbeat of Cancer…
Some cancers have the ability to spread to other parts of the body through the blood. They can then grow further in these secondary areas. This process is called metastasis, (meta = change, stasis = state) meaning the state (or area) of the cancer has been changed. Malignant tumours can spread by metastasis but benign tumours cannot.
The ABC health news website reported yesterday that in the future, doctors may be able to hear a cancer if it has moved through metastasis. Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia say they have used a procedure called ‘photoacoustic detection’ to pick up the characteristic vibrations of melanoma cells in the blood. It combines the laser techniques from the discipline of optics and ultrasound methods from acoustics.
The researches state that this technique could let oncologists (physicians who deal with cancer) identify as few as 10 cancer cells in a blood sample. This way they can notice if a tumour is spreading before it attacks another organ.
They used a laser to make cells vibrate and then picked up the sound of melanoma cells. The particles of melanin in melanoma cancer cells absorb the energy bursts from the blue laser light. As the melanoma cells expand and contract, they generate crackling sounds that can be picked up with microphones.
Assistant Professor John Viator, who worked on the study, says that because other human cells don’t have pigments that are coloured similar to melanin, it is easy to tell apart melanin sounds from important life-giving cells. The Professor says a short blood test taking only 30 minutes can tell doctors if chemotherapy must be administered quickly if the cancer has started to spread. And what’s fantastic is that cancer patients in remission can rest at ease, knowing if they are in the danger zone anymore.
Some cancers have the ability to spread to other parts of the body through the blood. They can then grow further in these secondary areas. This process is called metastasis, (meta = change, stasis = state) meaning the state (or area) of the cancer has been changed. Malignant tumours can spread by metastasis but benign tumours cannot.
The ABC health news website reported yesterday that in the future, doctors may be able to hear a cancer if it has moved through metastasis. Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia say they have used a procedure called ‘photoacoustic detection’ to pick up the characteristic vibrations of melanoma cells in the blood. It combines the laser techniques from the discipline of optics and ultrasound methods from acoustics.
The researches state that this technique could let oncologists (physicians who deal with cancer) identify as few as 10 cancer cells in a blood sample. This way they can notice if a tumour is spreading before it attacks another organ.
They used a laser to make cells vibrate and then picked up the sound of melanoma cells. The particles of melanin in melanoma cancer cells absorb the energy bursts from the blue laser light. As the melanoma cells expand and contract, they generate crackling sounds that can be picked up with microphones.
Assistant Professor John Viator, who worked on the study, says that because other human cells don’t have pigments that are coloured similar to melanin, it is easy to tell apart melanin sounds from important life-giving cells. The Professor says a short blood test taking only 30 minutes can tell doctors if chemotherapy must be administered quickly if the cancer has started to spread. And what’s fantastic is that cancer patients in remission can rest at ease, knowing if they are in the danger zone anymore.
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