iPhone terminals have always been at the forefront of discoveries in the field of medicine, and now we see a new technological innovation based on the iPhone. A team of researchers from the University of Washington recently presented a portable laboratory which is able to detect cancer almost instantly using an iPhone terminal.
Professor Lei Li of the University of Washington coordinated this project, and according to the researchers, the mobile laboratory is capable of analyzing up to 8 different samples simultaneously. More than this medical laboratory it has unprecedented accuracy for the type of medical device we are talking about, and this gives it a high importance.
According to Professor Lei Li, this medical device is able to detect interleukin-6 (IL-6), a biomarker that confirms the existence of cancer in the lungs, prostate, liver, breast, and also epithelial cells. The medical device uses a spectrometer to analyze the amount and type of chemicals in a sample, the light spectrum being used in this sense.
Cancer can now be detected using the iPhone
The best part of this medical device is that it can be used not only in hospitals around the world, but also in various other locations. More precisely, clinics in remote areas, without methods to detect cancer, could use medical devices of this kind to make a more precise detection without problems.
"With our eight channel spectrometer, we can put eight different samples to do the same test, or one sample in eight different wells to do eight different tests. This increases our device's efficiency. The spectrometer would be especially useful in clinics and hospitals that have a large number of samples without on-site labs, or for doctors who practice abroad or in remote areas. They can't carry a whole lab with them. They need a portable and efficient device.”
Although other similar devices exist, none of them can check up to 8 separate samples simultaneously, but more than that, none has such high accuracy. Practically, this medical device brings a major innovation in terms of cancer detection, iPhone terminals once again coming to the fore.
The medicam device is so good that although it was initially tested with clinical samples for which the existence of cancer was proven using specialized devices, it is now also used on new samples. The device was created to work initially with the iPhone 5, but will be modified to work with any kind of smartphone.
