Cancer ‘pen’ for surgeons

Patients emerging from cancer surgery want to know, “Did you get it all?” Now scientists are developing a pen-like probe to help surgeons better tell when it’s safe to stop cutting or if stray tumor cells still lurk.

The device is highly experimental, but lab tests show it uses molecular fingerprints to distinguish between cancerous cells and healthy ones far more quickly than today’s technology, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

“That’s really anyone’s worst nightmare, to go through surgery and know there’s a chance” some cancer remains, said lead researcher Livia Eberlin of the University of Texas at Austin “By providing real-time molecular information, we could really improve accuracy.”

Her team aims to begin testing the device during surgeries, starting with breast cancer, early next year.

When surgeons think they’ve removed all of a tumor, they often also remove a thin layer of surrounding tissue, called the margin, to be sure no cancer cells linger at the edge and increase the risk of relapse.

The problem: That check takes time for pathologists to process the tissue and examine it under the microscope.

For certain, especially tricky, tumors, surgeons sometimes pause for a half-hour to more than an hour, the patient still under anesthesia, to await the results.