Using split-spectrum microscopy, cancer can be detected before disease

Cancer kills many people every year, but the treatment of cancer seems relatively weak. This is because it is difficult for people to diagnose these diseases before the onset of cancer in terms of current medical equipment and technology. After the diagnosis is made, cancer cells have been generated and spread, which has caused great difficulty in the treatment.

However, this situation may change due to a new technology, and cancer may be diagnosed before the onset of the disease. Recently, U.S. scientists used PWS microscopy to use subwave spectromicroscopy to detect subtle changes in intracellular DNA long before the onset of cancer, thereby leading to cancer or Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease) Make early warning.

Although it was previously known, some subtle changes in cells occur before the disease is fully formed. But these changes usually involve structure widths of less than 400 nanometers, and the wavelengths available to ordinary optical microscopes do not capture such subtle changes at all. The use of PWS microscopy allows the observation of intracellular nanoscale details, especially for changes in the chromatin density of complexes composed of DNA and proteins. Although these changes may appear in the first few years before the onset of disease, they cannot escape the PWS microscopy test.

Currently, using this technology, scientists have extracted unusual chromatin densities from cells that appear to be healthy in cancer patients, while healthy human cells do not. This technology is obviously of great significance for cancer treatment. It can be used to screen the general public to find early signs of cancer and Alzheimer's disease, to facilitate early treatment and control of the disease.