A nano-scale tool that distinguishes soft cancerous cells from stiffer normal ones could save lives by making it easier to diagnose cancer. Researchers at UCLA have used an atomic force microscope to show that the surface of living cancer cells were more than 70 per cent softer than their healthy counterparts. This measureable difference in elasticity held true across lung, breast and pancreatic cancers, and could provide a powerful means of detecting malignant cells that might otherwise escape notice. The study has been pulished in the British Journal Nature Nanotechnology.
The researchers removed body fluid from suspected cancer patients and used atomic force microscopes to apply minute amounts of pressure on individual cells. It was discovered malignant cells were four times as soft as normal tissue across all three types of cancer examined.
It all sounds very exciting and anything that will assist with earlier detection can only be good.
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