‘Smart’ surgical knife detects uterine cancer ‘in seconds’, study finds

A smart surgical knife that can detect when it cuts through cancerous tissue has been shown by scientists to ‘reliably’ diagnose the uterus cancer “in a few seconds”.

The research, published in the Cancer magazine, should minimize the current delays for women while they wait for a diagnosis of uterine cancer after their tissue samples are tested in the laboratory.

The device, iKnife, has proven in previous studies to be a breakthrough tool in the diagnosis of different cancers that can pinpoint exactly which tissue to remove from a patient, reducing surgery the time and the need for repeated operations.

Previous studies have shown that the smart “smart” knife – a type of electrosurgical knife used to cut and cauterize blood vessels – can correctly identify different types of tissue, including the lungs, colon and liver.

Research has shown that the iKnife works by sucking smoke during cauterization into a mass spectrometer – a device that reads chemical signatures and indicates whether cut tissue is cancerous or healthy.

“The iKnife is an emerging tool that uses standard electrosurgical methods to generate surgical aerosols which are then interrogated by a mass spectrometer to provide real-time tissue signatures,” explained scientists, including those at Imperial College. of London, in the study.

In the new research, scientists set out to determine if the iKnife could correctly identify endometrial cancer from biopsy specimens.

Endometrial cancer is a common gynecological cancer with more than 120,000 new cases diagnosed each year in the European Union alone, scientists say.

The researchers evaluated around 150 endometrial samples in this study and found that the smart knife “reliably” diagnosed endometrial cancer within seconds, with a diagnostic accuracy of around 90%.

“These results are very encouraging and suggest that the iKnife could be used in the clinic to provide point-of-care diagnosis,” the scientists noted, adding that the surgical tool may pave the way for “new diagnostic avenues.” .

So far, according to the researchers, analyzing tissue samples for the diagnosis of uterine cancer can “take up to two weeks”, with treatment delays and definitive surgery having a negative impact on chances of survival.

With the iKnife – which has been shown to be able to “precisely discriminate” between normal and cancerous tissue in various tumors, including in colon, breast, cervix and ovarian tissue – researchers claim that a rapid point-of-care diagnostic method for endometrial cancer can be developed.

They say the smart knife technology “has the potential to accelerate the patient journey, providing point-of-care diagnosis for women suspected of endometrial cancer.”

“It accurately distinguishes normal endometrial tissue from malignant tissue based on differences in their lipidomic profiles. Further larger studies are needed to validate this technique and improve its diagnostic performance,” the scientists added.