Pen detects cancer in just 20 seconds

The MasSpec Pen, being introduced at SXSW this week, can identify cancerous tissue during surgery.

The MasSpec Pen, being introduced at SXSW this week, can identify cancerous tissue during surgery.

“The MasSpec pen is a handheld device combined with a spectrometer that can diagnose cancer within 20 seconds, while the surgery is taking place,” said Marta Sans, research assistant in the Livia Eberlin Research Group.

Touching the pen to the tissue, it extracts molecules from the tissue and analyzes them. “We can then create a molecular fingerprint, which can tell us whether it is cancerous or not, based on the pen’s analysis,” Sans said. All this takes just 20 seconds.

For doctors, this technology is truly groundbreaking. Identifying cancerous tissue from normal tissue during surgery is sometimes difficult, and waiting for results from pathologists is often time-consuming.

“The doctor can remove the tissue, send it to a pathologist to be frozen. It takes a long time,” said Dr. Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. “In the meantime, everyone has to wait for the pathologist's report to see if the cancer diagnosis is clear.”

Furthermore, not being able to remove all of the cancerous tissue during surgery can create more complications, Lichtenfeld says.

“The real question is, if you don’t get all the cancer cells out, do they stay in one place? In fact, tumor cells can stay, even migrate to other parts of the body at a later time,” Lichtenfeld says.

In testing, the cancer pen diagnosed four types of cancer – breast, thyroid, ovarian and lung – with over 96% accuracy.

But the rapid cancer diagnosis pen does not mean it is not accurate. The researchers said that after analyzing 300 patient samples, they were able to diagnose four types of cancer - breast, thyroid, ovarian and lung - with an accuracy of over 96%, eliminating the risk of removing abnormal tissue.

“It will bring many benefits to patients and the health system,” said Sans.

Still, Lichtenfeld remains cautiously optimistic.

“We have to remember that there is a long way to go from concept to proving that it actually works, to having it used by doctors in real life. We don't know the answers yet, and, clearly, researchers understand that they have more work to do,” he said.

The MasSpec pen has not yet been tested on humans during surgery. Over the next few months, the device will be installed at Texas hospitals: Dell Medical School, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Baylor College of Medicine.

Additionally, the process for FDA approval of this technology can also take several years.