It's in the works.
Novelties - A Tiny Monitor With a Huge Task - Tracking Cancer - NYTimes.com
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created prototypes for cancer monitors the size of a grain of rice, small enough to fit easily into the bore of a biopsy needle. Tiny coated particles inside the devices can bind with molecules linked to cancer at the site, creating minuscule clumps that can be detected by a non-invasive scan like an M.R.I., said Michael J. Cima, a professor of materials science and engineering at M.I.T. and leader of the team that created the devices.
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Dr. Cima is planning a variety of devices, each set up to monitor a different metabolic activity of tissue near a tumor.
“Things as simple as pH and dissolved oxygen are known to be very good indicators of responses to therapy,” he said. “If the therapy is having an impact on the survival of that tumor, you’ll see it in the local metabolites.”
But testing on human patients is years away. “The next step is to implant these devices in larger animals with tumors that look more like human tumors,” he said.
He hopes that the devices will eventually lead to a stream of diagnostic information, he said, “to help physicians treat cancer as a chronic disease as opposed to an acute one.”
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