Doctors at Duke Medicine have tested a new injectable agent that causes cancer cells in a tumor to fluoresce, potentially increasing a surgeon’s ability to locate and remove all of a cancerous tumor on the first attempt. The imaging technology was developed through collaboration with scientists at Duke, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Lumicell Inc.
According to findings published January 6 in Science Translational Medicine, a trial at Duke in 15 patients undergoing surgery for soft-tissue sarcoma or breast cancer found that the injectable agent, a blue liquid called LUM015 (loom – fifteen), identified cancerous tissue in human patients without adverse effects.