A research team at the Medical Research Council has developed a novel mechanism to detect and remove Barrett's dysplasia cells, paving the way to prevent their development into esophageal cancer.
Since a tiny portion of the esophagus is used for sample creation, the chance of detecting the presence of cancer-causing cells in the esophagus during biopsy and endoscopy is very less. During the study, the research team has observed alterations in the patterns of sugar molecules, which make the lining of the Barrett's dysplasia cells.
The novel mechanism uses a fluorescent probe, which is attached to sugars by spraying onto them. The attached fluorescent probe illuminates any abnormal spots during endoscopy. The research team discovered that various sugar molecules were present on the pre-cancerous cell surface through the analysis of the sugars found in human tissue samples obtained from various stages on the cancer pathway utilizing a microarray technology devised by Lara Mahal of New York University.
In this technique, lectins and sugar binding proteins are used to detect the alterations in sugar patterns and pinpointed wheat germ proteins that bind with carbohydrates are used as a potential diagnostic. While spraying these wheat germ proteins, bonded with a fluorescent tag that illuminates under a particular type of light, onto tissue samples, it reveals minimal binding in the dysplasia cell areas, which can be identified clearly when compared to the illuminating green background.
According to the head of the research team, Dr. Rebecca Fitzgerald, the team has shown that variations in patterns of sugars on pre-cancer cells can be determined by attaching a wheat germ protein, which is non-toxic and inexpensive. When this method is integrated with fluorescence imaging utilizing an endoscopic camera it becomes a promising technique to detect and treat esophageal cancer at an early stage.
Source: http://www.nyu.edu/