New imaging device that can detect tiny tumours

A new approach to medical imaging using an instrument that can reveal details of tumours and tissues with a precision 1,000 times sharper than existing techniques has been developed by American scientists.

Raman spectroscopy can picture internal anatomical features within an accuracy of nearly a billionth of a millimetre and has already been used to image both normal tissues and tumours in mice. It could be particularly useful in cancer surgery, allowing doctors to detect and remove tumour particles that are too small to be picked up and excised using existing techniques.

But it will have to overcome safety hurdles before it can be tested on people, because it relies on nanotech-nology. For tissues or tumours to be imaged, they must first be “stained” with gold nanoparticles or carbon nanotubes injected into the body.

Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, Professor of Radiology at Stanford University in California, who led the research, said it had great medical potential nevertheless. The technique could work alongside existing methods such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans, and had several advantages over both, he said. In particular, it could reveal multiple targets with a greater precision than was currently possible.

Source - The Times

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