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By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON, Mar 15 (Reuters) - A newly developed technique that tracks and illuminates cancerous cells could prove invaluable for detecting early-stage breast cancer that may elude other methods, researchers said on Wednesday.
The technique involves introducing into the bloodstream fluorescent molecules that travel to the breast and search out cancer cells, the researchers said. Once inside malignant cells, the glowing molecules emit a beacon signal that can be detected by a sensitive optical sensor, they added.
"The detector is fast, hand-held, more or less like an ultra-sound but responding to the beacon signal," said Dr. Britton Chance of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, who described the procedure at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Seattle.
"The specialty is the ability to detect very small cancers beyond the limit of feasibility of other methods," Chance added in a telephone interview.
The research borrows from radar techniques developed during the 1940s as well as contemporary CD and cellular telephone technology, Chance said. The technique was developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Washington University and Drexel University.
The method relies on a substance called tricarbo-cyanine, which often is used for testing liver function. The tricarbo-cyanine is administered into the bloodstream and accumulates in the breast tissue, researchers said. It is imaged by sending very short pulses of red light through tumors inside the breast tissue.
Chance said the procedure, which he called a "stealth probe," was an example of minimally invasive imaging in which small amounts of a biochemical can make a definitive cancer diagnosis. Creating a method to thwart breast cancer by zeroing in on malignant cells before they can begin to spread in the body is a tantalizing goal of medical science.
In searching for breast cancer cells, the procedure could offer advantages beyond being minimally invasive, he added. Because the technique does not have the limitations that mammography has in its capacity to examine dense breast tissue, it could be used on women under 40 who have a family history of breast cancer.
"A mammogram does a different job," Chance said. "Mammography is after morphology. We're after biochemistry."
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