New Blood Test Detects Cancer at a Very Early Stage
New Blood Test Detects Cancer at a Very Early Stage
February 17, 2012
BGU Prof. Joseph Kapelushnik, of the Faculty of Health Sciences, working together with researchers at Soroka University Medical Center, where he chairs the pediatric hemato-oncology department, has developed a unique method of detecting cancer with blood tests, using infrared light beams.
Researchers take a small amount of blood and insert it into a device they developed. Then a spectrum of infrared light is beamed through the blood, enabling them to estimate whether the patient has cancer or not.
In an initial trial, they succeeded in detecting cancer in almost 90 percent of cancer patients tested.
“This research is still in the early stages of clinical trials,” says Prof. Kapelushnik. “But the purpose is to develop an efficient, cheap and simple method to detect as many types of cancers as possible.”
Doctors say it is imperative to increase early detection of cancer in patients, before it gets to advanced stages that must be treated with a long and difficult treatment.
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