A group of researchers say that X-rays in cancer patients exhibit patterns that can exhibit the genetic profile of their tumors.
These genetic marks can be used later to determine the treatment of the patient.
However, a new scanner that could detect cancer, scientists are about to develop a StarTrek-style scanner, capable of attracting signs of disease and offer a diagnosis simply by passing a wave over the patient’s body.
The technique provides the doctor with information about the cancer status of the patient, something that until now was only possible through a biopsy.
Researchers believe that this system, which at the moment is the size of a shed, could finally serve to diagnose other diseases besides cancer.
This system could be manipulated to show multiple characteristics of diseases, something that would allow to carry out a more personalized medicine, in which the decisions about diagnosis and treatment will be based exactly on what is happening in the patient.
The team of scientists explored the X-rays of patients with liver cancer and identified more than one hundred patterns that corresponded to levels of gene expression inside tumors. And with so few manipulated samples manage to develop the genetic profile of tumors by 80%.
These and other innovations are now possible in Pharmamedic.