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Science

Handheld Scanner to Detect Cancer 52

Posted by michael from the tricorder dept.
An anonymous reader writes "BBC news is reporting a new handheld scanner that can detect cancers in patients. In clinical trials at a hospital in Milan, the scanner was able to correctly identify 93% of prostate cancer patients whose condition was later confirmed by a biopsy operation."
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Handheld Scanner to Detect Cancer More

Handheld Scanner to Detect Cancer

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  • Damnit Jim (Score:4, Funny)

    by DrLudicrous ( 607375 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @12:55PM (#6183117) Homepage
    What we have here is a tricorder...

    Damnit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!

  • What about false positives? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DustMagnet ( 453493 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @01:03PM (#6183214) Journal
    93% sounds great. Even the 66% for breast cancer is amazing. What the article doesn't mention is false positives. I could identify 100% of all cancers if you let me have unlimited false positives.

    • Re:What about false positives? (Score:4, Informative)

      by DustMagnet ( 453493 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @01:07PM (#6183259) Journal
      The article [newscientist.com] in New Scientist has some more details, but still no information on false positives.

    • I could identify 100% of all cancers if you let me have unlimited false positives.

      I could identify 100% of all cancers with zero false positives if you give me a stick of uranium.

    • Re:What about false positives? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @01:42PM (#6183616) Journal
      Obviously, a more traditional method of diagnosis is still required.

      What I didn't notice is if the 34% that weren't a success were shown to have cancer and did not, or shown to not have cancer and did.

      Taking a "better safe than sorry" approach, if the scanner says you're positive for cancer, then go ahead and get a biopsy even if you're actually healthy. But if the device misses the cancer, then it really can't be relied upon.

      Although 94% is pretty good. I wonder what the success rate of biopsy diagnosis is...

      And am I the only one who thinks it's a bit odd that they can't get their results published in a medical journal?
      =Smidge=

      • Re:What about false positives? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Sgt York ( 591446 ) <jvolm@earthlin[ ]et ['k.n' in gap]> on Thursday June 12, 2003 @02:07PM (#6183876)
        I wonder what the success rate of biopsy diagnosis is...

        Biopsy is nearly 100% effective; the false positive/negative risks are low in the hands & eyes of a good pathologist. The hard part is knowing what to biopsy. Some other test has to be done beforehand to show you where the putative cancer is.

        Even tumors ID'd with this device would need to be confirmed via biopsy, MRI or CAT scan. Most likely MRI followed by biopsy.

        As for publication, they may not have submitted it yet (need more data, timid researchers), or reviewers haven't finished their reviews yet, or the editor is sitting on it to publish it alongside another paper, or the BBC could be blowing the data out of porportion (the latter is the most likely. Happens all the time.)

    • My good man! you have discovered a classic junk science trick -- playing the odds. For items of very low incidence, you can obtain great accuracy raiting by simply sticking with the most common answer. Polygraphs for instance, about .01% of people who take polygraphs are "deceptive" (most people take them as part of background checks, employment, etc). So polygraph operators could get a 99.99% accuracy raiting by simply saying *everyone* was telling the truth. In reality polyographers aren't even smart

  • tumors (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tid242 ( 540756 ) * on Thursday June 12, 2003 @01:09PM (#6183275) Homepage
    It is interesting to note that this machine works by means of detecting solid tumors, alas the vast majority of cancers (prostate, breast, lung, colon) have a solid tumor component, but i wonder if one of these machines could be used to pick up, say: muliple myeloma. Or leukemias...

    Also it would be interesting to know if it could be adapted to detect other disorders of normal tissue via changing microwave resonance: pulmonary fibrosis, alzheimer's disease, et al.

    Good ol' BBC didn't even mention the false positive rate either...

    -tid242

  • The device, which looks a little like the metal detectors used in airports, works because different types of body tissue resonated in different ways when exposed to a fluctuating frequency of microwaves given off by the device.

    I thought microwaves were bad for you.

    • Re:Let's just hope the device isn't *causing* canc (Score:4, Informative)

      by GiMP ( 10923 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @01:44PM (#6183639)
      Only at frequences that resonate with water (2.4ghz) like your microwave oven or your WiFi card. In the case of the WiFi card it isn't a big deal since the power is very low.

      • Only at frequences that resonate with water (2.4ghz) like your microwave oven or your WiFi card. In the case of the WiFi card it isn't a big deal since the power is very low.

        That's a common misconception. The resonant frequency of water is not at 2.45 GHz (the freq of microwave ovens). There is an absorption peak around 22 GHz for liquid water. (See How a microwave oven works [zyra.org.uk] and the graph from Ask Mr. SETI [berkeley.edu].) Of course, the molecules of water interact more than those of a gas, so things are a bit more

      • Only at frequences that resonate with water (2.4ghz) like your microwave oven or your WiFi card. In the case of the WiFi card it isn't a big deal since the power is very low.

        I've never even seen proof of high-intensity microwaves causing cancer, at least at intensities not high enough to cook someone. The frequency of the radiation is what matters most - cancer risk scales far more dramatically with frequency (exponential) than intensity (nearly linear).

        Otherwise, a ton of microwave transmitter operator

    • Re:Let's just hope the device isn't *causing* canc (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Learn the difference between ionizing radiation and non-ionizing radiation. Microwaves are non-ionizing.
    • They are, but the doses here aren't high enough to hurt you.

      This reminded me of something I heard years ago, in college. A guy from a cancer research organization (Stehlin) came by & talked to our class about cancer treatments. One of the investigative techniques focused on microwaves.

      Apparently, it's more damaging to cancer than normal cells (has to do with plasma membrane composition). If exposed to low levels for a fairly long period of time (several minutes to an hour a day for several weeks), the tumor would dissolve and the local normal tissue would remain. The main problem they had at the time, he said, was that the cancer cells tended to lyse all at the same time, and the subject would go into lethal toxic shock, a prety bad way to go(this was working in mice.)

      This was a while ago, 1990 or 91. I haven't heard anything from them about this stuff in a while, so it probably fell through.

    • Pretty much everything involved in treating cancer is "bad for you." Chemotherapy is the introduction of poisons into the system, sometimes at the site of a tumor and sometimes just of a toxin that tends to kill tumors more than it kills you. Radiation therapy is about killing cancer cells with the kind of radiation that comes off off radioactive metals or with X-rays, both of which can kill you or cause cancer. Of course trying to just cut a tumor out usually involves getting a lot of healthy tissue.

      Porp

  • Thank God. I'm getting close to the age [if not there, uggh] of getting THE PROBE during a yearly physical. I would really like to see this become mainstream or at least find a doctor that uses it.


    • I'm getting close to the age [if not there, uggh] of getting THE PROBE during a yearly physical.

      Dude, I'm looking forward to it. My wife had a diagnostic colonoscopy and to judge from her behavior afterwards, they gave her some good drugs!

      • Hate to burst your bubble, but the good drugs are only for the big scary sigmoid thing.
        Ol' Doc RubberGloves (the "manual digital inspection" for your prostate) is, as another poster phrased it, Grin and Bear it.
        Of course, you could always BYODrugs, I suppose. Personally, I'd hate to go into that physical while drunk. Pavlov teaches me that I'd associate the sensation of being drunk with the resulting ... uh... discomfort. I'd have to quit drinking from there on out.

        --


        • the good drugs are only for the big scary sigmoid thing.

          Naw, I had one of those already. It's quite uncomfortable, and they don't give you anything. A colonoscopy goes much farther into your nether regions, so they make you happy while they do it.

          Despite the discomfort, it was cool to watch the video of the sigmoidoscopy. My lower colon in real time. Reality TV at its disgusting best.

    • I'm not sure about you... but I'd wait until I find out how they used the scanner first.
      Chances are the ol' rubber glove is a lot more comfortable than having a hand-scanner rammed up there (which was my first mental image when I thought about scanners and cancer tests)
  • The handheld sacnner sure as hell beats the doctor sticking his hand up my ass.
  • Sorry Mr Morton, we can't issues you that 4 million dollar policy, you have cancer. It's a pre-existing condition so you assed out.

  • Flatbeds? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by phorm ( 591458 )
    I wonder if you could get this to work with flatbed scanners. It would make a great excuse to give to your boss/parent/professor...

    "No, honestly sir, I was scanning myself for colon cancer - see this slashdot article? Umm, no I don't know anything about the emails with odd picture attachments my co-workers have been getting. It must be an unrelated incident."
  • Why do editors link to articles which don't tell you anything when they could just as easily link to the original site which doesn't tell you much more? I don't think that the BBC mentioned "Hybrid State Maser" or other remotely technical details... Trimprob [galileoavionica.it]

  • Raise an eyebrow (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I hope they tested for cancer BEFORE they used the device too!

    Person walks in with prostate problems. (Really doesn't have cancer)
    Med scans prostate.
    Device causes cancer, THEN detects it.
    Person now has prostate cancer.

    Get that thing away from my prostate!

  • "'Age of onset of prostate cancer, 53 years.' When's your birthday?"

    "Two weeks ago."

    "Uh...hup...yeah, there it goes. Sorry, pal."

  • Because it would ruin a perfectly good joke: It says it's handheld, but it doesn't say what you do with it; Whether you wave it over their arse, or just stick it up in the middle of it. If it's the latter, then the only thing it's going to possibly solve is the occasional stinky finger due to latex failure...

  • Biopsy still necessary in many cases (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Metameme ( 22408 ) <tony@kols t e e.net> on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:00AM (#6188910) Homepage
    IANAD, but my wife's currently on her third bout with lymphoma (NHL once, Hodgkin's twice) so I have researched this pretty heavily.

    Biopsied tissue is not subjected to a pass/fail test for cancer. Often the excised tissue is tested against different combinations of chemotherapy drugs to see which the tumor(s) will respond to best. In addition, a biopsy can help determine what specific type of cancer cells are present; knowing that a patient has lymphoma says very little about rate of growth, type of treatment indicated, etc. There are several types of lymphomas, both Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkins. Even knowing the difference between those two categories is helpful as non-Hodgkin's can be treated with monoclonal antibodies whereas Hodgkin's cannot.

    This device, if it lives up to the hype, can still help.

    First of all, we've had a lot of failed biopsies because they took tissue from areas that were benign and had to go back for more tissue in different areas. If the device could determine *where* the cancer is, it would make a biopsy more effective the first time around and prevent a lot of needless suffering and expense.

    Secondly, many patients go through a staging surgery to determine the progression of the disease after the initial diagnosis. In lymphomas, the stages are ranked as I-IV, with an additional A or B tag. Simply knowing the cancer is both above and below the diaphragm in multiple sites will tell you that the patient is stage IV. The A/B tags represent whether there is organ involvement (B) or none (A).

    Additionally, remission is often diagnosed through the results of CT and PET scans, which are not entirely conclusive but much less traumatic than surgery for additional biopsies, especially considering the effects of chemotherapy on the immune system and the healing ability of the body.

    Hope this helps clear it up; anyone in the know please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this...
    • It sounds like the thing is intended as a screening device, so it's not going to tell you where it is. Maybe in the future, but as with all screening methods (mammography being the most common), it's intended to check a lot of people quickly and non-invasively. If something suspicious is found, then follow-ups are done using more detailed and possibly more invasive methods.

      Perhaps the most important part of the NewScientist article is at the bottom

      the results of the early trials have yet to appear in a

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