Massachusetts: American scientists have developed a simple paper test that can diagnose cancer in its early stages.
This test, created by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, evaluates the compounds in the urine like a pregnancy test, and if the result is positive, a dark line is visible on the strip of paper.
According to a 2020 report, around one crore people die from cancer worldwide every year. Despite tremendous innovation in the medical field, there are some types of cancer that are extremely difficult to diagnose in the early stages (when treatment is most likely to be successful).
The greatest difference in treatment success rates between early diagnosis and delay in diagnosis has been observed in people with lung cancer. The one-year survival rate for men at stage 1 of this cancer is 81 percent, while at stage 4 this rate drops to 15 percent.
One method of diagnosis may be to test for proteins made by cancerous cells. However, these proteins are present in such low amounts in the early stages that they are almost impossible to detect.
But in this new test, these proteins are not marked, but it is reported that these proteins are active in the body.
When tumors are growing, they make enzymes called proteases that cut through healthy tissue to clear the way for cancer to grow.
According to details presented in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the paper tests the presence of these enzymes and cancer cells.
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