Cancer treatment could soon be aided by a device that monitors the growth of a tumour from within the body, enabling practitioners to have a greater understanding of the effect of medical intervention on the cancer, it has been claimed.
A team at the David H Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT has successfully charted the advance of cancer cells in mice using the implant, according to a report published in Biosensors & Bioelectronics.
Michael Cima, MIT professor of materials science and engineering, commented: "What this does is basically take the lab and put it in the patient."
He added that this tool was essential to ensure that cancer treatment is a more manageable experience for patients.
Inserting the implant at the time of carrying out a biopsy was considered by the team to be the ideal time to place it in a patient.
The David H Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT was founded in 1974 and is responsible for the discovery of the anti-cancer drug Herceptin.
