Oct 7 2010
Scientists from the Northwestern University claim that optical scanning technology has the ability to identify early symptoms of lung cancer, by surveying the cheek cells of human. A press release from the University stated that the biophotonics technology can pre-screen patients at his/her risk for the disease.
NorthShore HealthSystem’s Director of Gastroenterology Research, Dr. Hemant K. Roy stated that with the optical technology, they will have the ability to diagnose patients who are at high risk for lung cancer. NorthShore has partnered with Northwestern University in the research.
Northwestern University's Professor of biomedical engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering, Vadim Backman has developed the partial wave spectroscopic (PWS) microscopy technique. The PWS can identify cell features of 20 nm size, and reveal the differences in cells that are not visible using conventional microscopy techniques.
Backman commented that the PWS evaluates the disorder strength of the cell’s nanoscale organization, which is one of the early signs of carcinogenesis and a strong indicator of cancer presence in the lungs.