Cancer Diagnosis via Mobile Phone App

A smartphone-based system developed by Harvard University (Massachusetts, USA) researchers aims to revolutionize how quickly and how accurately cancer diagnoses are achieved.  The present “gold standard” technique for cancer diagnosis involves chemicals used to stain cancer cells to become visible by microscope, but the approach takes days or weeks, and is only 84% accurate.  The newly developed mobile phone application consists of a smartphone connected to a miniature MRI machine.   Requiring only one-thousandth of a milliliter of tissue sample, this diagnostic approach takes 60 minutes or less, and claims an accuracy of 96%.  The team urges that: “Our quantitative point-of-care … technique shows potential for cancer diagnosis in the clinic.”