Smartphone Device Detects Cancer in Under an Hour

Want to detect cancer on the go? There is an app for that. An increasing number of healthcare-related apps are starting to trickle into the app store that could help save lives.
Scientists at the Center for Systems Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital integrated a microNMR device that accurately detects cancer cells to a smartphone. Though just a prototype, this device enables a clinician to extract small amounts of cells (minimally invasive) from a mass inside of a patient (~4000 cells), analyze the sample on the spot, acquire the results in an hour, with 96 % accuracy, and pass the results to other clinicians and into medical records rapidly. The device only costs $200. Oncologists have needed a rapid, minimally intrusive, and accurate method for cancer screening for a long time. Currently, if a suspicious lump is found through a mammogram or a colonoscopy, there is no way to be certain if it’s malignant or benign without testing the tissue directly using a biopsy which is very risky. This involves inserting a needle into the mass and extracting a small amount of cells. One of the main reasons cancer rates in the US have been dropping for years is early detection. Modern biopsy analysis has an 84 percent accuracy rate and can take three to four days to produce results. Furthermore, tissue can degrade during transport to an external testing site and current immunohistochemistry methods can produce false positives. This new system detects cancerous cells from freshly acquired patient samples in an hour with an accuracy of 96 percent. The next decade will definitely be the decade of the smartphone, it is exciting to see that some apps can saves lives.


Ralph Weissleder is an American clinician scientist. He is a professor at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for Systems Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and an Attending Interventional Radiologist at MGH.

Smartphone Device Detects Cancer in Under an Hour