This new low-cost portable device may help detect cancer early!

New Delhi: A low-cost portable device has been developed by a team of scientists that may help in the early diagnosis of the deadly disease, cancer.

This device can help diagnose the disease just by detecting tumour cells in blood.

Researchers from University in Tarragona (URV) in Spain developed the device which can counts the number of tumour cells in a blood sample in real time.

It is thus a highly effective tool for improving the monitoring, treatment and diagnosis of cancer.

Researchers said that the device can accurately determine a patient's level of health and monitors cancer quickly, cheaply, effectively and non-invasively.

It can also assist in the early diagnosis of the disease and monitor tumours more effectively and in a manner that has a less negative effect on patients' bodies.

The portable device uses two systems in miniature: a flow system and an optical system.

Researchers said that the first causes the blood cells to flow in alignment, while the second uses two optic fibres (a laser diode and a photodetector) to analyse and count cancerous and non-cancerous

cells. The ratio between the two reveals how the cancer is progressing.

The finding were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

(With PTI inputs)