Research

New Device Accurately Identifies Cancer in Seconds

Sep 7, 2017

How It Works

Living cells, whether they are healthy or cancerous, produce small molecules called metabolites. These molecules are involved in all the important processes of life—such as generating energy, growing and reproducing—as well as other useful functions such as removing toxins. Each type of cancer produces a unique set of metabolites and other biomarkers that act as fingerprints.

“Cancer cells have dysregulated metabolism as they’re growing out of control,” says Eberlin. “Because the metabolites in cancer and normal cells are so different, we extract and analyze them with the MasSpec Pen to obtain a molecular fingerprint of the tissue. What is incredible is that through this simple and gentle chemical process, the MasSpec Pen rapidly provides diagnostic molecular information without causing tissue damage.”

The molecular fingerprint obtained by the MasSpec Pen from an uncharacterized tissue sample is instantaneously evaluated by software, called a statistical classifier, trained on a database of molecular fingerprints that Eberlin and her colleagues gathered from 253 human tissue samples. The samples included both normal and cancerous tissues of the breast, lung, thyroid and ovary.

When the MasSpec Pen completes the analysis, the words “Normal” or “Cancer” automatically appear on a computer screen. For certain cancers, such as lung cancer, the name of a subtype might also appear.

In tests performed on human samples, the device was more than 96 percent accurate for cancer diagnosis. The team has also demonstrated that it accurately diagnoses cancer in live, tumor-bearing mice during surgery without causing any observable tissue harm or stress to the animals.

Physicians can operate the disposable handheld device easily. It requires simply holding the pen against the patient’s tissue, triggering the automated analysis using a foot pedal, and waiting a few seconds for a result. Meanwhile, the pen releases a drop of water onto the tissue, and small molecules migrate into the water. Then the device drives the water sample into an instrument called a mass spectrometer, which detects thousands of molecules as a molecular fingerprint.

The process is also low-impact for patients.

“When designing the MasSpec Pen, we made sure the tissue remains intact by coming into contact only with water and the plastic tip of the MasSpec Pen during the procedure,” says Zhang. “The result is a biocompatible and automated medical device that we are so excited to translate to the clinic very soon.”

Funding for this research was provided by UT Austin through the startup funds to Eberlin, as well as the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health and the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas.

Full citation: J. Zhang, J. Rector, J. Q. Lin, J. H. Young, M. Sans, N. Katta, N. Giese, W. Yu, C. Nagi, J. Suliburk, J. Liu, A. Bensussan, R. J. DeHoog, K. Y. Garza, B. Ludolph, A. G. Sorace, A. Syed, A. Zahedivash, T. E. Milner, L. S. Eberlin, Nondestructive tissue analysis for ex vivo and in vivo cancer diagnosis using a handheld mass spectrometry system. Sci. Transl. Med. 9, eaan3968 (2017).