Colorizing technology highlights cancerous tissue

In operating rooms today, cancer surgeons are essentially forced to operate without any definitive way of determining whether or not 100% of the diseased tissue has been removed. Thanks to a radical invention by researchers in Massachusetts, that huge limitation could soon be a thing of the past. A new system, dubbed FLARE (Fluorescence-Assisted Resection and Exploration), involves a near-infrared (NIR) imaging system, a video monitor, and a computer. These tools are used to see special chemical dies (christened NIR fluorophores) that are crafted to "target specific structures such as cancer cells when injected into patients." When these dyes are exposed to NIR light, the cancer cells light up, giving doctors an easy look at what they have left to remove. The team is gearing up to showcase the technology at the American Chemical Society national meeting in Philadelphia -- here's hoping it can be put to good use in the very near future.

[Lia @ Aug 20th 2008 10:48PM]

Like the mouthwash that dyes kids plaque blue, except way, way more impressive.

[I-phone Is I-sexaayy @ Aug 20th 2008 10:30PM]

sweet!

This iengadget rocks

[Mike10010100 @ Aug 20th 2008 10:31PM]

While this is not a cure-all, this is most certainly on a path to a more effective treatment and prevention of the spreading of some types of cancer.

Bravo, Science, Bravo.

[Jedix123 @ Aug 20th 2008 10:38PM]

wow that is a bad photoshop

[rreddy @ Aug 20th 2008 11:02PM]

Perhaps its not a photoshop image to begin with, rather a real live shot of someone just before undergoing surgery. One thing for sure is I can't tell what limb that is.

Either way, kudos to the researchers who developed the technology!

[bolezhinkov @ Aug 20th 2008 11:58PM]

it kind of looks like a headcrab

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 21st 2008 12:10AM]

A cancerous headcrab.

[Living Brain Donor @ Aug 20th 2008 10:45PM]

This isn't really a new idea. The use of dyes to mark cancerous cells so the amount of tissue removed can be limited without leaving any of the cancer behind is not a new idea. It goes back more than 20 years, with the idea of cancer cell-specific dye markers going back at least 10 years. The problems have always been sensitivity and selectivity, and the results have been mixed up to now. I rather hope they nail it this time, but 100% is a hard target to reach. Unfortunately, much less than that is just not good enough for many types of cancer.

[Ian @ Aug 21st 2008 1:24AM]

You're right. I don't know how this is different from any other technique. The problem has always been specificity, and sensitivity with regards to how large the tumour is before it shows up in imaging.

That's why they treat using radiation following many treatments, even surgical removal of a cancer. They cut the visible bits off, and any tumour cells that are left behind are treated with radiation, which takes care of the cells they can't see.

[Jack @ Aug 20th 2008 11:02PM]

Now THAT'S a step in the right direction...kinda funny considering all the cell phones with cancer-causing microwaves. PHOBIA ALERT!

[Antigravityhero @ Aug 20th 2008 11:09PM]

I bet they find out later that the dye causes cancer.

[Dan Halen @ Aug 20th 2008 11:17PM]

"If it bleeds, we can kill it."

[Ian @ Aug 21st 2008 2:17AM]

"i'm sorry i just don't trust something that bleeds for seven days and doesn't die."

[me @ Aug 20th 2008 11:28PM]

I've actually seen this kind of technology live in person. I recall that it was at either NextFest or Digital Life a while ago and it's really cool. Everything's done in real-time and in my particular case, it was a simple scan of my veins.

So, no, it's not a photoshop. It's an actual scan and projection that's shown on the skin in real time.

[Brent1700 @ Aug 20th 2008 11:54PM]

It's a pigs leg

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 21st 2008 12:11AM]

It's kinda sad how the Guitar Hero mod has 3 times as many comments as a post about helping get rid of cancer. :P

[simon @ Aug 21st 2008 1:07AM]

You know, I was thinking the same thing about the number of articles and postings between medical science items like this (inclduing the recent post on the "artificial pancreas") and the iPhone...

[allislost @ Aug 21st 2008 1:26AM]

@Carl

It is sad. I say we start thanking these guys through comments before they lose the drive to do research.

...I can almost imagine these guys feeling kinda bummed out when the Guitar Hero DS mod gets more attention than their life saying work.

So Thank You Massachusetts Researchers.

[Anne @ Aug 21st 2008 12:27AM]

This technique of finding cancer cells is realy reliable and I think optical solution for the treatment pupose. I am not agree with Jedix123 it is not Photoshop work. Like such technique but at not so advance also use for detecting the skin condition vitiligo, the name of which I think is wood lamp experiment I think the name of the site was http://www.antivitiligo.com/. Any how this is the age of modern sciences and technology and such thing are possible. I think there is a need of more research on FLARE system to increase its utalization for other diseases.

[Fenguin @ Aug 21st 2008 2:37AM]

The way the PhysOrg article is written is very misleading - it leads the reader to assume that the cancer-detection technology is imminent, which is entirely not true. So far the team at Beth Israel has only been able to "successfully visualize organs and body fluids of mice and map the lymph nodes of pigs" - fairly easy tasks as tissues from different organs and the lymphatic system are very distinct and as a result uniquely targetable with their dyes. With cancer, however, the task becomes much more challenging since cancerous tissue can be very similar chemically to normal tissue - thus far, even after decades of research, scientists have not yet found a unique surface marker for any kind of cancer which has prevented the development of both imaging systems (like the one in the article) and targeted drug delivery systems. I am sure the researchers will find some way of doing it in the next few years, but this technology is far from being mature enough to be "put to good use."

[Gorjan @ Aug 21st 2008 5:00AM]

This is great, although nothing new. Similar technologies have been used for sime time in surgical resection of cancers.

[XenoX101 @ Aug 22nd 2008 8:19AM]

Dr. Hibbert: Now Mrs. Simpson, what you see here is the radioactive dye we injected into your husband's bloodstream.

Nurse: But doctor! I haven't injected the dye yet!

Dr. Hibbert: Dear lord...

[XenoX101 @ Aug 21st 2008 8:03AM]

Dr. Hibbert: Now Mrs. Simpson, what you see here is the radioactive dye we injected into your husband's bloodstream.

Nurse: But doctor! I haven't injected the dye yet!

Dr. Hibbert: Dear lord...

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 21st 2008 9:43AM]

Ahehehehehehehehe

[Tony Chiang @ Aug 21st 2008 9:54AM]

Now the scientists just have to figure out how to bond the cancer drugs to the dyes so that when the dye is put into the bloodstream, the drugs will grow in concentration in the tumors and not (necessarily) have those nasty side effects of chemotherapy.

I thought that radioactive dyes were used previously as a visualization method, kind of like x-ray. The problem is that wouldn't you need a large machine to see where the dyes have concentrated in the whole body rather than in just one area? I'm sure that if you were interested in only one area, you'd still have to have the machine to have the output for the doctor to see where the concentration is, which can't be easy to use for surgical procedures.

Removing cancerous tissue generally involves cutting around the tumor, which usually takes out a lot of healthy tissue as well; this technology will really reduce the amount of healthy tissue that is removed from a procedure, and probably will give cancer patients a higher percentage of certainty that all the tumor cells in that area are removed.

It's a step towards treating cancer...like everyone said, it's not a cure-all.

[Sal @ Aug 21st 2008 1:20PM]

After reading through all the comments: LOLz

Yes, it looks like a cancerous headcrab. But, the cancer fight tools people come up with. Its a win