iKnife tells surgeons in seconds if tissue is cancerous

Scientists in the UK have developed an "intelligent" surgical knife which can tell the surgeon in seconds whether or not the tissue being cut is cancerous. It is based on the electrosurgical knife which is commonly used to cut tissue by heating it rapidly, a technique which produces little loss of blood. During this process, vapour is emitted from the tissue and is generally ignored. However, Zoltan Takats from Imperial College London thought that this vapour might contain information relating to the status of the tissue, so he invented the iKnife which mops up this vapour and sends it to a mass spectrometer for examination, as described in Science Translational Medicine.

The mass spectrometer is one of a new generation which can provide results in seconds, which is an important factor for the surgeon who needs to decide quickly where to cut. Metabolites in the vapour are detected and checked against a reference library to see whether they are characteristic of healthy or cancerous tissue. The library was built up from cancerous and non-cancerous tissue samples from 302 patients which were analysed in the lab..

When the technique was transferred to the operating theatre and applied in real time, it proved to be 100% accurate, matching the post-operative conclusions that were based on conventional analyses. The accuracy should help to reduce those cases where patients need further surgery at a later date because all of the cancerous tissue was not removed at the first attempt.