Researchers at London’s Imperial College have developed a surgical knife that will enable doctors to detect if the tissue they are cutting into is cancerous or not. This “intelligent” knife or “iKnife”could mean fewer surgeries for patients when more cancerous tumours are found.

This is how the technology works:

The technology, effectively merging an electrosurgical knife that cuts through tissue using heat with a mass spectrometer for chemical analysis.

The researchers reported in Science Translational Medicine that from the 91 patients who were tested, the knife was able to diagnose tissue samples with 100% accuracy. The knife provides an analysis of the tissue in three seconds where as today it can take up to half and hour for the tissue to be sent for laboratory analysis.

The smoke that is given off while the tissue is being cut is analysed for biological information which is then compared to biological fingerprints from tumours and healthy tissue in a database.

Head and neck surgeon at Southampton Hospital, Emma King said:

It’s a really exciting innovation and a very promising technique for all types of surgery.

The knife has also been able to distinguish between beef and horsemeat.

[Source: Reuters]