Researchers from the University of Coimbra, Portugal, announced a new optical technique that helps identify cancer in patients in their early stages. This method can utilize laser radiation or infrared to detect cancer and even analyze the surgical margin of each case, as written in a press release.
Most approaches to diagnosing cancer nowadays are histopathological, which allows doctors to differentiate between regular and cancerous cells morphologically.
The Portuguese study, VIBSonCANCER, focused on optical methods of diagnosing cancer using a vibrational spectroscopy approach. This non-invasive technique provides medical experts with possible chemical alterations in a patient’s cells, assisting in an early and rigorous diagnosis.
According to the researchers, this new practice does not aim to substitute the current methods but gives extra information not obtained by other means. The effectiveness of this technique was very positive, even being capable of differentiating non-malignant and malignant testing tissues.
Scientists are now developing a prototype that could impact chemotherapy and alternative treatments’ success rates. Overall, they aspire to benefit the prognostics of cancer patients in the future.
