Scientists develop new laser that can find and destroy cancer cells in the blood

Scientists develop new laser that can find and destroy cancer cells in the blood

Scientists develop new laser that can find and destroy cancer cells in the blood

Excerpt: The new technology, dubbed the Cytophone, uses pulses of laser light on the outside of the skin to heat up cells in the blood. But the laser only heats up melanoma cells — not healthy cells — because these cells carry a dark pigment called melanin, which absorbs the light. The Cytophone then uses an ultrasound technique to detect the teensy, tiny waves emitted by this heating effect. They tested the technology on 28 light-skinned patients who had melanoma and on 19 healthy volunteers who didn't have melanoma. They shone the laser onto the patients' hands and found that within 10 seconds to 60 minutes, the technology could identify circulating tumor cells in 27 out of 28 of those volunteers. The device didn't return any false positives on the healthy volunteers, and it didn't cause safety concerns or side effects, they said. Melanin is a pigment that is normally present in the skin, but skin cells aren't harmed, Zharov said. (They were only looking for a detection method and were surprised that it also killed the cancer cells found. So far, melanoma is the only cancer this works on, but it’s one of the more common cancers. They say there is good  reason to think they may be able to do it for breast cancer within a few years. Coming to a hospital near you in the future.  Ron P.)