A small sponge-like implant that can
mop up cancer cells as they move through the body has been developed by US
researchers.
So far tested in mice, it is hoped
the device could act as an early warning system in patients, alerting doctors
to cancer spread.
The implant also seemed to stop
rogue cancer cells reaching other areas where new tumours could grow.
The findings appear in Nature Communications .
Cancer Research UK said nine in 10
cancer deaths were caused by the disease spreading to other areas of the body.
About 5mm (0.2in) in diameter and
made of a "biomaterial" already approved for use in medical devices,
the implant has so far been tested in mice with breast cancer.
Experiments showed that implanting
the device in either the abdominal fat or under the skin sucked up cancer cells
that had started to circulate in the body.
The implant mimicked a process where
cells broken loose from a tumour were attracted to other areas in the body by
immune cells, the researchers said.
They found that these immune cells
set up camp on the implant - a natural reaction to any foreign body - drawing
the cancer cells in.
Initially, the researchers
"labelled" cancer cells so they would light up and be easily spotted.
But they then moved on to a special
imaging technique that can distinguish between cancerous and normal cells, and
found they could detect cancer cells that had been caught in the implant.
Reduce
spread
Unexpectedly, when they measured
cancer cells that had spread in mice with and without the implant, they found
that the device not only captured cancer cells, it reduced the numbers present
at other sites.
Researchers have long been looking
for ways to detect the spread - or metastasis - of cancer at an early stage,
but cancer cells that circulate in the bloodstream are rare and hard to detect.
Study leader Prof Lonnie Shea, from
the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan, said
they were planning the first clinical trials in humans fairly soon.
"We need to see if metastatic
cells will show up in the implant in humans like they did in the mice, and also
if it's a safe procedure and that we can use the same imaging to detect cancer
cells," he said.
He said they were continuing work in
animals to see what happened to the overall outcome if cancer spread was
detected at a very early stage - something which was not yet fully understood.
Lucy Holmes, Cancer Research UK's
science information manager, said: "We urgently need new ways to stop
cancer in its tracks.
"So far this implant approach
has only been tested in mice, but it's encouraging to see these results, which
could one day play a role in stopping cancer spread in patients."
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