Local extraction and detection of early stage breast cancers through a microneedle and nano-Ag/MBL film based painless and blood-free strategy.

ABSTRACT

Early diagnosis is the key to the good prognosis of breast cancer. At present, clinical tumor diagnosis is mainly through serum analysis, which is painful and can only detect relatively advanced tumors that have already metastasized from the glands into the blood circulation. Here, we developed an earlier diagnostic method (before tumor cells entering the blood) of breast cancers through a convenient and painless process with blood-free samples. The microneedles were utilized to insert into the animals' testing areas, while the tissue fluid was collected through our synthesized breathable thin film. The obtained tissue fluid sample was then incubated to form blue products. In the area where tumors occurred, the blue changes were more obvious than the healthy area, a semi-localization and semi-quantitative detection of the tumorous area thus could be realized. The results of corresponding animal experiments showed that, after the injection of tumor cells, the proposed nano-Ag based colorimetric method can detect the occurrence of breast cancers in 7 days. What is more, these early tumors could be effectively suppressed through classical DOX treatment. For comparison, the classical blood test needed 14 days to validate the occurrence of breast cancers. The subsequent human tests further demonstrated the feasibility of the present method. The development of this work could provide a more convenient, accurate and comfortable technology to support for the early screening and diagnosis of cancer patients, so as to fundamentally reduce the mortality of the breast cancers.