Health News: Implant Device Detects And Traps Circulating Cancer Cells In The Body

Ninety percent of people die of cancer. A major factor contributing to these cancer deaths is due to the metastasis of the disease in the patient. Metastasis is when cancer cells spread throughout the body and are often undetected until it is too late. Now, scientists have developed an implant device that detects and traps circulating cancer cells in the body.

According to Science News for Students, American researchers have developed a sponge-like implant device that can detect and trap circulating cancer cells in the blood. Circulating cancer cells or circulating tumor cells (CTCs) break off from the main cancerous tumor and spread throughout the body. These CTCs are difficult to detect until another tumor is found and it is almost too late for the patient.

The implant device is biodegradable and is about five millimeters in diameter. The device is made up of sponge-like material already in use in various medical devices. The implant device has the molecule CLL2 inserted on it.

CLL2 is a signaling molecule that attracts immune cells to accumulate and latch on the device. The immune cells then attract circulating tumor cells and trap them in the sponge-like body of the device. The device is inserted in the abdominal fat or just under the skin.

The CTC-trapping implant device was tested on mice with breast cancer. After two weeks, the implanted device on the mice accumulated enough CTCs for the scientists to analyze. The result shows that the device has successfully trapped the circulating tumor cells inside the device's body.

The scientists also found out that compared to mice without the implants, the mice with implants have reduced the number of CTCs in their bloodstream. The reduced number of CTCs would mean the metastasis of cancer in a patient's body can be prevented.

The researchers also found a better technique to detect cancer cells in the device while it is implanted in the body. The scanning technique, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), penetrates a few millimeters in the tissue, measures the light scattered off large molecules and structures in the cells. Cancer cells can be easily detected because its internal body is denser.

Although the implants were successful with mice, the challenge now is for the researchers to successfully implement it for humans. Another one is to develop the OCT scanner to penetrate human skin to detect the cancer cells as human skin is thicker than mouse skin, as reported by New Scientist.