Japanese scientists have created a product that, applied as a spray on ovarian cancer during surgery, causes cancer cells to fluoresce, which would help surgeons to detect and completely eliminate these types of tumors, even the foci more microscopic cancer cells. This would remove debris that can cause further metastasis, say Hisataka Kobayashi and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo in the journal Science Translational Medicine .
The scientists used as the main ingredient a substance called gGlu-HMRG that acts on an enzyme called GGT. Although this enzyme is found on the surface of all cells, with the new probe it is only activated in cancer cells, causing tumors to "light up" seconds to minutes after it is applied directly to tissue within the body.
The scientists tested the probe in the lab on 11 human ovarian cancer cell lines in the lab and subsequently in mice that were to have an ovarian tumor that had spread. Activation of gGlu-HMRG occurred one minute after the spray was applied locally to the tumor, creating a high-contrast signal between the tumor and surrounding tissue. Now scientists are testing whether the technique would work in colon cancer, liver cancer and gastric cancer.
