Sci Adv: Chinese scientists have developed a new technique that promises to quickly lock down stomach cancer cells.

August 9, 2020 // -- Gastric cancer is the world's third leading cause of cancer death in the population, with more than 1 million new cases each year, and about 800,000 people die each year from stomach cancer, the main reason for the poor prognosis of gastric cancer patients is that it is difficult for researchers to make early diagnosis of peritoneal metastasis of gastric cancer.
The separation and identification of tumor cells is essential for the early diagnosis of cancer peritoneal metastasis, however, due to the low level of cancer cells in the peritoneal irrigation fluid of cancer patients, traditional detection methods often lack sensitivity and can not meet clinical needs.
Photo: ZHANG Yuzhao et al. In a recent study published in the international journal Science Advances, scientists from the Shenyang Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other institutions developed an optically induced electrodynamic (OEK, optically induced electrodynamics) microflow method that can be used for unlabeled separation and degeneration of stomach cancer cells.
First, the researchers created a new OEK-based microflow chip to isolate gastric cancer cells from the patient's abdominal water and analyze their electrochemical characteristics, and then they created a cell polymerization model and a cell membrane capacitor solution model. The
researchers say there is a significant difference in size and electrical characteristics between gastric cancer cells and peritoneal irrigation cells, so an OEK-based method could theoretically isolate gastric cancer cells from the patient's peritoneal and peritoneal fluid; Cancer cells, with a purity of up to 71%, are less sensitive than traditional clinical peritoneal metastation tests, and are a labelless, non-destructive and fast detection technique that allows researchers to isolate and collect stomach cancer cells in OEK microfliros chips in less than five minutes.
In addition, the researchers were able to obtain cell membrane capacitance information for gastric cancer cells and peritoneal peritoneal lotion cells, which may serve as a biomarker and are part of cellular information;
sources: Yuzhao Zhang, Junhua Zhao, Haibo Yu, et al. Detection and isolation of free cancer cells from ascites and peritoneal lavages using optically induced electrokinetics (OEK), Science Advances (2020). doi: 10.1126/sdv.aba9628.