Cancer surgery: Tumour 'sniffing' surgical knife designed

An “intelligent” knife that can sniff out tumours to improve cancer surgery has been developed by scientists. The Imperial College London team hope to overcome the dangerous and common problem of leaving bits of the tumour in a patient, which can then regrow.

Early results, in the journal Science Translational Medicine, showed the “iKnife” could accurately identify cancerous tissue on the spot. It is now being tested in clinical trials to see if it saves lives.

It is already used in hospitals around the world, but the surgeons can now analyse the smoke given off when the hot blade burns through tissue.

The smoke is sucked into a hi-tech “nose” called a mass spectrometer. It detects the subtle differences between the smoke of cancerous and healthy tissue.

Tests on 91 patients showed that the knife could accurately tell what type of tissue it was cutting and if it was cancerous.


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