Aggressive or fast-growing tumors are true headaches to the oncologists as these cancers rapidly spread throughout the body and lead to poor prognosis. Missing these cells during surgery significantly cause recurrence of the disease. Hence real-time detection of these cells is of immense importance. The Principle of the diagnostic technique: Now the researchers in the USA have unlocked the method to detect aggressively growing cancer cells that are based on a key property of these cells: ‘Hypoxia’ .
Hypoxia is defined as low oxygen in the cells and the tissues. When cancer cells rapidly grow, the concentration of oxygen in individual cancer cells depletes as oxygen supply through the blood vessel remains unchanged. The researchers are now detecting the hypoxic spots with a non-invasive imaging technology to find these cancer cells during surgery and allow the surgeons to eliminate these…
