This is great. I hope this kind of screening tech, like this, becomes commonplace and highly available. Early detection could save many lives and greatly reduce later stage treatment costs.
Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
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Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#12It's kind of what Theranos promised but didn't deliver?
I don't think so. Theranos wanted to do any and all blood tests from a single drop of blood. Toshiba is limiting themselves to just a single kind of test, which I'm guessing the science agrees is possible with such a small blood sample.
The problem w/ Theranos was that at first glance everything about it was physically too small. A single drop of blood is too little, the cost of running the tests was too low - to do all of the separate tests it was supposed to be able to do and still be within the realm of the possible.
The Toshiba machine doing one type of test from one drop of blood at a cost of ~$184 is well within the range of what should be possible in the real world.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#13They should name it Notheranos
Therayes
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#14Elsewhere it was mentioned it was 90% sensitivity and 95% selectivity which is not that good enough for something serious as cancer. Hopefully they can improve on it.
If it's very cheap, fast and convenient, then it's enough for at least screen the population regularly. Catching only part of the cancers is quite nice already.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#15Elsewhere it was mentioned it was 90% sensitivity and 95% selectivity which is not that good enough for something serious as cancer. Hopefully they can improve on it.
Does that translate to 5-10% chance of false-negative? Can't that be improved simply by having multiple tests with a few more drops of blood?
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#16Here's one paper I've found by quoted researcher, which I think is kind of relevant to the device/what this article is about: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30734558 I think they are creating microfluidic chips that analyze miRNAs. So, I imagine it's an orchestra of pumps, valves, etc pushing very very small amounts of liquid around and using an array of techniques to detect things, all dictated by microcontroll…
That’s the important point here. RNA analysis by chips or sequencing is nothing new. But there’s always a long way from the lab to the clinic, and its capital intensive to fund a startup in this field.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#17THERANOS IS BACK!
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a good start. If they'd be able to do 13 tests from a drop of blood from each of my fingers that'd be 130 tests!
Ouch. Give me a needle please.
The finger prick is an interesting non-sexual way to positively identify masochists. Everything about the finger prick takes away control while maximizing pain. A nurse can't/won't give you an arm jab until you relax your arm but they'll detonate a finger jabber randomly with an audible 'snap' while you're helplessly watching it all happen in front of you.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#19Elsewhere it was mentioned it was 90% sensitivity and 95% selectivity which is not that good enough for something serious as cancer. Hopefully they can improve on it.
If it's very cheap, fast and convenient, then it's enough for at least screen the population regularly. Catching only part of the cancers is quite nice already.
No, not necessarily. Check out these numbers:
Sensitivity is what fraction of the affected people are actually found. Here: 90%, so 10% are missed.
Specificity is what fraction of the unaffected people are detected as such. Here: 95%, so 5% wrongly detected ("false positives").
In Europe, there are 60 cases of lung cancer per 100 000 people.
That makes 54 correctly detected per 100 000, missing 6 cases. That also means 5000 people incorrectly suspected of lung cancer (5% of 100 000).
Update: using the accuracy from the article itself, we would still get a total of 1000 of false negatives (affected but not detected) and false positives (unaffected but suspected). Incidence is still 60/100 000.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#20Elsewhere it was mentioned it was 90% sensitivity and 95% selectivity which is not that good enough for something serious as cancer. Hopefully they can improve on it.
Does that translate to 5-10% chance of false-negative? Can't that be improved simply by having multiple tests with a few more drops of blood?
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