MSU announced a significant breakthrough in rapid cancer diagnostics. Two methods separately showed 100% accuracy in classifying samples. Two methods of blood plasma analysis separately showed 100% accuracy in classifying samples. However, this is not yet a ready-to-use test for humans: the study was conducted on limited samples of laboratory mice.
The research was conducted by scientists from the MSU Faculty of Chemistry in collaboration with colleagues from the Blokhin National Medical Research Center of Oncology. They tested blood plasma from healthy animals and mice with various types of tumors – breast, lung, and melanoma.
The first approach is based on "optical fingerprints." In other words, a special dye oxidizes differently in the blood plasma of healthy and sick mice. This difference can be used to classify samples.
The second method is total reflection X-ray fluorescence analysis. It measures the level of trace elements in blood plasma, including iron, copper, zinc, selenium, and other elements.
According to published data, both methods individually achieved 100% classification accuracy on limited samples of mice with implanted tumors. Combining the approaches did not increase accuracy because it had already reached 100%, but it allowed for expanding the range of detectable cancer types and the timeframes when the method could be effective.
It is especially important that for some tumors, the approaches worked at a very early stage. The research results are published in the journal Analytica Chimica Acta.