Doctors have found a novel approach to finding Deadly Brain Cancers that takes less time than the usual biopsies and does not require surgery. This revolutionary ‘liquid biopsy’ test needs as little as 100 microliters of blood and can discern biomarkers associated with glioblastoma—the most frequent and fatal kind of brain tumor—in one hour.
The test, which researchers characterized as possessing ‘near turn-key functionality,’ is superior to any other technique to identify glioblastoma. This groundbreaking technology is developed by teams from the University of Notre Dame in the United States and Australian scientists. The research is still under progress and is being considered as a game changer in diagnosing brain cancer.
It is factual that the life expectancy of a glioblastoma patient is limited to an average range of 12–18 months since the time of diagnosis, as pointed out in a statement from the University of Notre Dame. At the center of this new diagnostic approach are probes in the form of a biochip that operates based on electrokinetic means to identify biomarkers, which are active epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFRs). These receptors are upregulated in cancers such as glioblastoma and are also found in the extracellular vesicles.
The Bayer Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Notre Dame and lead author of the study about the diagnostic published in communication biology, Hsueh-Chia Chang, said, “Extracellular vesicles, or exosomes, are unique nanoparticles secreted by cells. They are big—10 to 50 times bigger than a molecule—and they have a weak charge. Our technology was specifically designed for these nanoparticles, using their features to our advantage.”
Even though this new technique developed has a lot of promising potential, the researchers are encountering two major hurdles: first, synthesising a process that helped differentiate between active and inactive EGFRs, and second, producing the diagnostic technology that would enable the detection of active EGFRs on extracellular vesicles isolated from blood samples.
You might also be interested in – These three hidden, deadly cancers demand your immediate attention
