By Rachel Morton
Wellington scientists have discovered a new way of detecting cancer before it develops into tumours.
It involves injecting tiny particles into the body, which seek out cancer cells and light them up.
A million dollar microscope is used to analyse tiny particles called "quantum dots", which are tiny illuminated particles that have the potential to detect cancer at a much earlier stage than is currently possible.
Victoria University Lecturer Richard Tilley says the new discovery will revolutionise cancer detection.
“If you can imagine if you have a tumour or a cancer inside you if we can send particles to stick to the cancer and then if they can glow and give off light they'll essentially glow and give off where the cancer is,” he says.
The quantum dots would be injected and then travel around the body and accumulate at the cancer.
The cancer only has to be a single cell - too small to be detected by an MRI machine.
“Typically a tumour has to be about two centimetres in size, so if we're trying to look for tumours which are smaller than that this would be one method for that,” says Mr Tilley.
Mr Tilley plans to continue researching the dots, so they become a treatment - as well as a method of diagnosing cancer, sending medicine directly to the cell or tumour.
“If we can send a dose directly to the cancer they would have a far greater local concentration of the drug to actually treat the cancer and also reduce the side affects that people have,” he says.
The quantum dots, which have taken six years to develop, are more suited to detecting cancers that are not deep within the body - like melanoma.
But Mr Tilley is working to make MRI scans more effective at detecting deeper tumours.
The study is being published in the journal of the American Chemistry Society - but it could take five to ten years of testing before its proven safe to use on patients.
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