Mumbai, February 19: Timely diagnosis is crucial to effective treatment and recovery from cancer. To aid early cancer detection scientists are now involved in efforts to create a tiny liquid sensor that can detect cancer. If so, this could culminate in a home detection kit to detect cancer.

The device will make use of an acoustic resonant sensor smaller than a human hair that can test fluids from the body to detect various diseases, which includes breast and prostate cancer. It is being developed by Jae Kwon, who is assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, at the University of Missouri.

Kwon revealed that often sensors are unable to detect disease-producing substances in liquids. This is due to difficulty in receiving signals in a liquid environment. However, he explained, a highly sensitive, low-signal-loss acoustic resonant sensors in the liquid would be able to effectively detect these substances. Kwon suggested that this could lead to the brand new concept of a noninvasive test for detecting cancer.

Towards this end the sensor Kwon is working on makes use of micro/ nano electromechanical systems (M/NEMS) that are so tiny that they are smaller in diameter than a strand of human hair and can be used to track diseases in the body fluids.

Kwon emphasized that the final goal was to come up with tool to enable quick and simple diagnosis of multiple, specified diseases. This could then be incorporated in ‘point of care’ systems. Point of care systems refers to a system to service patients at the bedside.

Kwon also stated that such as sensor would have strong commercial potential in the form of simple home kits for easy and precise diagnosis of diseases such as cancer of the breast and prostate. The research is published in the IEEE International Conference on Solid-state, Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems.