Pocket-Size Breast Cancer Risk Detector
The poke of a needle and a few minutes to spare is all it may someday take to monitor breast cancer risk, using a novel hormone measuring device built by a group of Canadian researchers. For the first time, estrogen can be measured in minutes using a tiny chip to purify the hormone in samples of blood or breast tissue thousands of times smaller than those required for conventional screening methods. Their invention may lead to a new era of quick and convenient routine screening for breast cancer risk or for monitoring breast cancer therapies.
In addition, there are a wide range of conditions that require frequent monitoring of sex hormones that could benefit, such as infertility. The apparatus is based on digital microfluidics, a powerful technology that controls the movement of tiny droplets of liquid samples without pipes or valves.
Instead, liquid droplets are coaxed by electricity, across a chip smaller than a credit card. Drops of liquid dissolve a dried sample of tissue and are then moved to a reservoir containing a second liquid. The drops are then circulated within the reservoir, which removes contaminants and other biological components, leaving a purer extract of estrogen. The result is a purer estrogen extract, which can then be evaluated using other analysis methods.
Using the chip, the researchers extracted the estrogen present in breast tissue samples from two breast cancer patients. Using a series of analysis techniques, they were subsequently able to determine the amount of estrogen in the tissue. It is thought that measuring the amount of local estrogen in breast tissue could be useful for identifying women at risk for developing breast cancer. Nonetheless, local breast estrogen is not routinely measured because conventional techniques are painful, costly procedures that require removal of large amounts of breast tissue. The “lab on a chip” device the researchers created will allow scientists to test this theory. This research appears in the 07 October 2009 issue of Science Translational Medicine.
Science is published by AAAS, the non-profit science society.
Looking for images or video? View past Science multimedia at the Science Multimedia Gallery.
