CytoPAN – diagnosing breast cancer in less than one hour

Researchers in Boston, Singapore and South Korea have developed a point of care device for diagnosing breast cancer.  It reaches a diagnosis in one hour, and was 100% accurate in a small cohort of test cases.  They report: “we developed an automated image cytometry system (CytoPAN) that allows rapid breast cancer diagnosis of scant cellular specimens obtained by fine needle aspiration (FNA) of palpable mass lesions. The system is devoid of moving parts for stable operations, harnesses optimized antibody kits for multiplexed analysis, and offers a user-friendly interface with automated analysis for rapid diagnoses. Through extensive optimization and validation using cell lines and mouse models, we established breast cancer diagnosis and receptor subtyping in 1 hour using as few as 50 harvested cells.”   MORE

Image Credit:  sciencemag.org