Experts say that iKnife can also be used to quickly find uterine cancer. It has already been used to find breast and brain cancer.
Experts at Imperial College London say that iKnife has been used successfully to find another type of cancer and that this work can be done in seconds. So, thousands of women’s lives can be saved, and women won’t have to go through tests they don’t need to find out if they have cancer.
Every year, 9,000 women in the UK are told they have cervical cancer, but only 10% of them can be found early because of a test called a biopsy. But the iKnife trial showed that it could find uterine cancer 89% of the time and get rid of the need for expensive and time-consuming tests. The research was written up in the journal Cancers.
When the iKnife is put on womb tissue, it sends out a light electrical current that makes the tissue burn a little. So, its electrical system can tell which cells are healthy and which are cancerous by the vapour they give off.
The team from Imperial College put it to the test on 150 women who might have ovarian cancer. When it was compared to the old way of testing, the results looked good. Now, there will be more clinical trials.
Experts have told women to be careful after their periods stop (sun yas), and if blood comes out of the womb, they should see a doctor right away. iKnife has made this work easier in other ways as well.
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