Doctors and scientists all over the world have fought an uphill battle with cancer and infectious diseases for numerous years. Each time a drug is developed to fight them, they manage to grow a little bit stronger, a little more persistent, and way more determined to evade these treatments and survive within the human body.
Dr. Shana Kelley and her team of researchers from the University of Toronto have developed a portable device with a disposable chip that could detect cancer at the molecular level, in its earliest stages of development.
Science and Technology
This would allow doctors to provide a treatment before the disease becomes malignant or terminal. Its design unique in that doctors would only need to take a sample of blood, urine or just a simple swab from the cheek to perform the test. Also, since cancer usually starts localized one particular area, early detection at this stage would allow more people to receive help when the disease is easily treatable.
As Dr. Kelley states, this new development will completely revolutionize the way diagnostic tests are completed. Currently, it takes patients days or even weeks to get diagnosed with certain diseases or cancers from a quite painful and invasive biopsy. Statistics show that 29.6 percent of all deaths in Canada are attributed to cancer, so this new technology could potentially be able to lower that rate significantly. Furthermore, it would save the healthcare system millions of dollars.
Canadian Cancer Statistics
However, since this development is still in the early stages, I have to wonder just how accurate this test is and how will it be received all around the world. There are probably many developing nations who could use this type technology so it not only could potentially impact the medical field in the Americas but also around the world.
References
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/tag/dr-shana-kelley
youtube.com
One response to “Developments in Nanotechnology: Diagnosis within minutes”