Smart Online App To Better Diagnose Cancer
BANGALORE: Scientists have developed an online tool that can help clinicians better differentiate the defects in individual tumour cells that appear to be similar. The open-source software, which is freely available online, is expected to help scientists better define the nature of a cancer and other diseases and improve their treatment.
To go on sale from the 20th seemingly similar cells, especially cancer cells, often have significantly different genetic mutations and therefore detailed knowledge of these mutations, called copy number variations (CNVs), in individual cells can point to specific treatment regimens.
"You may think that every cell in a tumour would be the same, but that is actually not the case," said Michael Schatz, associate professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in New York, U.S.
"We are realising that there can be a lot of changes inside even a single tumour," Schatz noted.
"If you are going to treat cancer, you need to , you need to diagnose exactly what subclass of cancer you have," Schatz explained.
