Endometrial cancer: this revolutionary scalpel detects tumors in seconds

A scalpel capable of detecting a cancerous tumor in a single touch, does that sound crazy to you? Yet it is the invention of which the prestigious Imperial College of London can be proud.

Improving solid tumor surgery

To treat solid tumors, surgery is usually the best hope for a cure. Most of the time, the surgeon removes the tumor by adding a margin of healthy tissue. However, it is often impossible to visually distinguish cancerous tissue from healthy tissue.

As a result, a number of patients undergo a second operation to elevate the entire cancer. In case of uncertainty, the removed tissue is analyzed while the patient remains under general anesthesia. But a new technique could facilitate this analysis, giving almost instantaneous results.

An improvement or a surgical revolution?

The iKnife is based on electrosurgery, a technology invented in the 1920s that is commonly used today. These knives use an electric current to quickly heat the tissue, and cut it, while minimizing the risk of bleeding. By doing this, they vaporize the fabric, creating smoke that is normally sucked in by extraction systems. Dr Zoltan Takats of Imperial College London has a hunch: rather than quickly get rid of these fumes, let’s try to find the biological information they contain.

In order not to see them go up in smoke, he had the idea of ​​connecting an electro-surgical knife to a mass spectrometer – an analytical instrument used in all scientific fields which makes it possible to identify the chemicals present in a sample. . Different cell types produce thousands of metabolites at different concentrations. By identifying them, the profile of chemical substances in a biological sample can reveal information about the state of this tissue and thus distinguish cancerous cells from healthy cells.

Detect cancer cells in human tissue

Called iKnife, and invented by Dr. Zoltan Takats, the instrument therefore makes it possible to identify different types of chemicals. Used on a sample of human tissue, this new kind of scalpel can then detect the presence of cancerous cells.

Already tested on breast and brain cancer tissue, would have a new advantage since it would work just as well on endometrial (or body of the uterus) cancers. Tested on 150 endometrial biopsies, IKnife made it possible to distinguish between normal and malignant endometrial tissues with a diagnostic accuracy of 89% with a sensitivity of 85% (ability to detect cancer in a sick person) and specificity ( probability that a positive test is indeed carried on a cancerous cell) of 93%.

Time saved in the face of this female cancer

​”The iKnife reliably diagnosed endometrial cancer with 89% diagnostic accuracy, minimizing current delays for women awaiting histopathological diagnosis”, wrote the team of researchers in the journal Cancer. According to her, the results presented in this study “may pave the way for new diagnostics”.

The use of an intelligent scalpel and “cancer detector” would allow patients to be treated earlier. Suffice to say that the iKnife is not a gadget!