Northern Michigan's News LeaderHealthy Living: Tumor Detecting App

Healthy Living: Tumor Detecting App

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Our phones apps can be time-killers or time-savers to help us get through the day. Now, there's an app that can tell if a tumors cancerous in almost no time at all. Robyn Haines shows us the $200 mini diagnosis device that might just be medicines next big thing in Healthy Living.

Developed by Doctor Cesar Castro and a team of researchers at Mass General Hospital, the mini nuclear magnetic resonance machine, or NMR, tests tumor cells. It's operated by Smartphone and tablet software that interprets the information. It's designed to be easy-to-use and accurate for clinicians.

If you spot a suspicious lump, Doctor Castro says you normally get a biopsy then wait three to seven days to find out if it's cancerous. With this, biopsy results only take 60 minutes. The small system requires a small amount of tissue for testing, and so far, it can identify up to 12 cancer markers.

In one study, it correctly diagnosed 48 out of 50 suspicious masses as cancerous or non-cancerous. In a subsequent test, it got 20 out of 20 right.

Doctor Castro says he'd like to see the device in rural and community hospitals that can't afford expensive medical equipment. The machine is still being tested, and it could be five to ten years before it's available for widespread use.

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