In the near future, oncologists may be using a finger-size plastic chip with tiny channels to extract a dozen or so cancer cells from a sample of a patient’s blood. Those cells, called circulating tumor cells, could then be screened for genetic disruptions that an oncologist could target with drugs best suited to attacking the tumor. Continued sampling would give doctors a way to monitor whether a treatment is working and decide whether to add or change a drug as the malady evolves.
Dozens of companies are vying for success in this market, which is expected to reach $7.9 billion in the next few years, but so far only one device, sold by a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, has received FDA approval. That current technology is not able to detect circulating tumor cells when they’re present only in very small numbers, says Daniel Haber, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, and cannot capture the full diversity of cells that escape from different tumor types in patients. But advances are already proven in labs and may be making their way to clinics in the next few years, experts say.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Finding Cancer Cells in the Blood | MIT Technology Review
