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Local researchers develop optical microscope that detects cancerous cells

2015-03-18 12 Dailymotion

An endoscopy is a common procedure during a health check-up in Korea...<br />And now there's new hope that local researchers have developed groundbreaking optical technology to detect cancer levels never seen before.<br />Sohn Jung-in has more on the innovation. <br />A patient who has been complaining of discomfort in his stomach is undergoing a gastroscopy, when doctors spot a scar on the stomach wall.<br />With an endoscopic examination like this, doctors can detect imperfections such as lumps or scratches.<br />But they cannot spot cancer cells because of the way light scatters, blocking their view.<br />However, a team of local researchers, whose work was published in the journal Nature Photonics earlier this month, has developed a high-resolution optical microscope that can detect abnormalities related to cancer at the cellular level.<br />The device assigns different values to light waves as they are emitted from various angles and collects the information.<br /><br /><br />"We've developed a microscope that can obtain information from light as it goes in and out of the tissue."<br /><br />The optical device enables doctors to see one-millimeter into the skin with a resolution 10 times clearer than existing microscopes, helping them to detect cancer at an earlier stage of development than what is currently possible.<br /><br /><br />"This new technology will overcome the shortcomings of the existing endoscopy. It could give us a way to detect cancer earlier by observing changes in human deep-tissue at the nucleus level."<br /><br />The researchers expect their new optical microscope to be put into practice within 5 years after being fully developed for the early detection of cancer.<br />Sohn Jung-in, Arirang News.

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