Good news for cancer patients, new Cancer Treatment Blood Test Equipment found. A blood sample is run across a microchip that is treated with a special glue that only collects cancer cells. Dr. Dennis Haber, one of the researchers, said, "For every one tumor cell in the blood, there are over a billion blood cells in circulation. So that's the big challenge in a test that can pull out one in a billion cells." Dr. Elmer Huerta is a past president of the American Cancer Society. "What I try to do if I give a treatment is to see if the tumor is shrinking and is disappearing in an X-ray, a CT scan, or an MRI," he said. n the new test, a blood sample is run across a microchip that is treated with a special glue. Then, Dr. Mehmet Toner said, "All these cells go through the chip, but only cancer cells are recognized by the chip and they stick to the chip." The healthy cells pass on. The hope is that by measuring the number and types of cancer cells in the blood, doctors can tell whether a patient's treatment is working. Breast cancer specialist Dr. Susan Love says not now. "We all have cancer cells in our bodies that are not really causing any problem.
What we have to be careful of with this new technique, is over-treating the dormant cells which were never going to give us any problem in our attempt to get every cell we can see," she said. The trials are expected to run for about five years. In the meantime, Dr. Huerta says people have to be vigilant. "While we wait for this technology to flourish and to mature, we have to remember that cancer is silent and, although imperfect, the best things we have nowadays to detect early cancer are pap smears, mammograms, fecal occult blood, colonoscopies and prostate examinations. And of course, a clinical examination by a doctor," he said.
