Cancer-Finding Spray Lights Up Tiny Hidden Tumors MRIs Can Miss (VIDEO)

Japanese scientists are shedding new light on tiny, hidden tumors that might otherwise go unseen by the eyes of surgeons and even magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI) with a new spray that makes the carcinomas glow fluorescent green.

According to Euronews, the spray reacts with an enzyme to create the color on the surface of cancerous cells.

The process causes the cancerous cells to glow more than 20 times brighter than the surrounding cells, according to SmartPlanet.

So far, the spray has been tried on human ovarian cancer cells in vitro and in mice. But the Nature news blog is reporting that researchers are now testing the spray on tumor specimens from humans and, potentially, for use with colon, liver, gastric and other cancers.

At this point, researchers say they have yet to identify any serious side-effects resulting from the spray.

While this process may be the quickest method yet developed, it's not the first time scientists have experimented with making cancer cells glow. Earlier this month, scientists began testing a technique to make brain tumors glow. That process, however, requires patients to take a drug that causes "a build-up of fluorescent chemicals in the tumour, making it glow pink."

WATCH: (WARNING: The video below is not for the squeamish, as it depicts researchers examining a dissected lab mouse.)

WATCH: (Euronews' report on the spray)

Comments

[Rosmila Rantes]

12:13 PM on 11/29/2011

Scientists devise cancer-finding spray

[luckyone77]

08:48 PM on 11/28/2011

Everyone should see http://www.burzynskimovie.com/

How a cure for cancer has been surpressed for 20 years.

[jalicea2001]

12:07 AM on 11/29/2011

Yes the greed of the drug companies has continued to hold back medical progress by doctors like Dr. Burzynski. I'm sure that there would be a cancer cure by now if the research was handeled exclusively by doctors and not drug companies. I remember seeing an interview years ago where Dr. Jonas Salk said there was no reason why a cancer vaccine couldn't be developed that would prevent the development of cancer similar to the polio vaccine that he developed.

[ciskokid]

04:47 PM on 11/28/2011

Hopefully the congressional gops will not limit the investment in medical research.

[jshms]

12:23 AM on 11/29/2011

the federal government should not be in the research business