Cancer Detected Earlier, Faster, with New Medical Imaging, Stanford Study Finds

Compatible with all existing endoscopes...mini probes allow for a closer look at any time...has FDA clearance....the mini probe is easier for the patient as the biopsy procedure is a smaller area...and allows physicians to reach areas not accessible before...BD

Doctors may one day be able to detect early stages of colon cancer without a biopsy, using a new technique developed by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The trick to picking up cancer without a biopsy is to find a way of seeing which cells are cancerous while they are still in the body. That’s what Contag and his group succeeded in doing. The group found a short protein that sticks to colon cells in the early stages of cancer. Before screening a person, they spray that short protein attached to a fluorescent beacon into the colon. The protein then gloms on to any cancerous cells and creates an easily visible fluorescent patch. They then used a miniaturized microscope called CellVisio, developed by Pennsylvania-based Mauna Kea Technologies and loaned to Contag, to peer inside the colon and look for those telltale spots.
Not only did the researchers see fluorescent patches, they could make out the individual cancerous cells. That fine resolution could allow doctors to pick up the earliest possible cancers. Contag said it could also become a useful research tool for studying the small number of cancer stem cells that are thought to establish the eventual tumor.