A probe so sensitive that it can tell whether or not a cell living within the human body is veering towards cancer development may revolutionize how future colonoscopies are done, say researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.
Investigators have found that technology known as a high resolution confocal endomicroscopy probe system can determine whether a colon polyp is benign (not precancerous) - without having to remove it for examination by a pathologist.
Their study, to be presented at the Digestive Disease Week, a scientific meeting of gastrointestinal specialists and researchers held in San Diego, shows that using the probe system was 89 percent accurate in identifying whether polyps were either precancerous or benign. But more importantly, it was correct 98 percent of the time in flagging polyps that were benign, which would then not need to be removed for biopsy. The Mayo researchers, who are the first in the U.S. to comprehensively test the system in the colon, believe they can push accuracy close to 100 percent with more research.
What this means is that the probe system can be used to during a colonoscopy to rule out removal of polyps that are not harmful, says the study’s senior author, Michael Wallace, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic.
“Today, half of all polyps surgically removed during colonoscopy procedures are benign, and so this virtual biopsy will save time and expense, and reduce complications that can occur,” he says.
The device is a tiny imaging tool, only 1/16th of an inch in diameter, which can be attached to a variety of endoscopes that are already being used during colonoscopies, Dr. Wallace says. When a suspicious polyp is seen during a colonoscopy, a physician can use the probe to look closely at the lesion. To do this, a small amount of fluorescent contrast is used to illuminate the area, and the probe magnifies it by 1,000 times – enough to see a single red blood cell as it moves through a blood vessel.