This research is so simple and so beautiful I’m left wondering why hasn’t anyone done it before. If you were a surgeon wouldn’t you want to use a glowing marker dye that sticks to prostate cancer cells so you could see them clearly and remove them? Well, thanks to a study led by Oxford University , this is now possible. Cancer Research UK scientists from Oxford, including the departments of biomedicine engineering, have used a fluorescent dye attached to a special marker to give medics a “second pair of eyes” during surgery .
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK, with around 52,300 new cases every year. Twenty-three patients were injected with the dye before undergoing prostate removal surgery, and its beauty is that it finds areas of cancerous tissue not picked up other clinical methods. The dye helps surgeons to see the edges of the tumour and identify any clusters of cells that have spread into nearby pelvic tissues and lymph glands.
This guides the surgeon to remove all cancerous tissue and preserve healthy areas. It substantially reduces the chances of the cancer coming back and minimises the chances of complications. The dye and marker work by attaching themselves to the surface of prostate cancer cells.
As a first step, the 23 men diagnosed with prostate cancer were injected with the fluorescent dye. Next, surgeons used an imaging system devised by engineers led by Oxford’s Professor Borivoj Vojnovic that shines a special type of light.