Smart knife detects cancer in 3 seconds

A member of 'intelligent knife' development team uses the knife on a piece of animal muscle during a demonstration at St Mary's Hospital in London on Wednesday. (AP Photo)

LONDON: Surgeons removing cancerous tissue face a dilemma — how to cut out as little healthy tissue as possible while making sure all of the cancer is removed and knowing which is which. The world's first intelligent knife, which uses an electrical current to vapourize the tissue while cutting through, may now tell them that in less than three seconds. 

In a major breakthrough, British scientists have tested the 'iKnife', which diagnosed tissue samples from 91 patients with 100% accuracy, instantly providing information that normally takes up to half an hour to reveal using laboratory tests. The findings by researchers atImperial College London have published the breakthrough in the journal Science Translational Medicine. 

"The iKnife provides a result almost instantly, allowing surgeons to carry out procedures with a level of accuracy that hasn't been possible before. We believe it has the potential to reduce tumour recurrence rates and enable more patients to survive," said its inventor, Dr Zoltan Takats of Imperial College London. 

The researchers first used the iKnife to analyse tissue samples collected from 302 surgery patients, recording the characteristics of thousands of cancerous and non-cancerous tissues, including brain, lung, breast, stomach, colon and liver tumours to create a reference library. The iKnife works by matching its readings during surgery to the reference library to determine what type of tissue is being cut, giving a result in less than three seconds.