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New tool to help surgeons remove more cancer tissue during brain surgery

Date:
December 7, 2011
Source:
American Chemical Society
Summary:
Scientists are reporting development and successful initial testing of a new tool that tells whether brain tissue is normal or cancerous while an operation is underway, so that surgeons can remove more of the tumor without removing healthy tissue, improving patients' survival.
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Scientists are reporting development and successful initial testing of a new tool that tells whether brain tissue is normal or cancerous while an operation is underway, so that surgeons can remove more of the tumor without removing healthy tissue, improving patients' survival.

The report appears in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry.

Zoltán Takáts and colleagues point out that cancer can recur if tumor cells remain in the body after surgery. As a precaution, surgeons typically remove extra tissue surrounding a breast, prostate and other tumors in the body. But neurosurgeons face severe limitations because removing extra tissue can impair the patient's memory, mobility and other vital functions. Neurosurgeons thus strive to precisely identify the tumor margins during brain surgery. Current methods take too long and are unreliable. To overcome these challenges, the researchers developed a new tool that can identify the margin between cancerous and healthy tissue in half the time previously needed.

They describe linking a mainstay surgical tool termed an ultrasonic aspirator -- used to break up and suction tissue -- to a modified version of a standard laboratory tool called a mass spectrometer. Their tests proved successful on human brain samples. "Besides brain surgery, the method has application potential in the field of the surgery of organs including liver, pancreas or kidney," say the researchers.


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Materials provided by American Chemical Society. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Karl-Christian Schäfer, Júlia Balog, Tamás Szaniszló, Dániel Szalay, Géza Mezey, Júlia Dénes, László Bognár, Matthias Oertel, Zoltán Takáts. Real Time Analysis of Brain Tissue by Direct Combination of Ultrasonic Surgical Aspiration and Sonic Spray Mass Spectrometry. Analytical Chemistry, 2011; 83 (20): 7729 DOI: 10.1021/ac201251s

Cite This Page:

American Chemical Society. "New tool to help surgeons remove more cancer tissue during brain surgery." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 December 2011. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111020024840.htm>.
American Chemical Society. (2011, December 7). New tool to help surgeons remove more cancer tissue during brain surgery. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 18, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111020024840.htm
American Chemical Society. "New tool to help surgeons remove more cancer tissue during brain surgery." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111020024840.htm (accessed March 18, 2024).

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