Shine OnScientists use sugar to detect cancer in safer MRI scans
Sugar is often slammed for being linked to a host of health aliments including obesity and diabetes, there is now a reason to appreciate nature's sweet concoction.
Apparently, sugar can be used to more easily identify cancer cells in the body and possibly eliminate the need for radiation exposure during routine MRIs.
Scientists from University College London have found that by injecting mice with glucose -- instead of the standard radioactive material -- they can use a glucose-sensitive MRI scanner to identify tumours that appear as bright images.
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"The method uses an injection of normal sugar and could offer a cheap, safe alternative to existing methods for detecting tumours, which require the injection of radioactive material," says lead researcher Simon Walker-Samuel from the UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging.
Walker-Samuel and his colleagues outline the new technique called "glucose chemical exchange saturation transfer" in their study published in Nature Medicine.
Because cancer cells contain significantly more glucose than other cells, these MRI scanners are able to detect tumours without the use of radioactive material. Typically, when a patient needs to undergo an MRI to identify possible cancer or monitor a current tumour they are injected with a radioactive material, which can have negative health side effects.
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"We can detect cancer using the same sugar content found in half a standard sized chocolate bar," says senior researcher and professor Mark Lythgoe.
Another benefit of using sugar to detect cancer is that it is considerably safer for children and pregnant women.
The study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre, Cancer Research UK, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the British Heart Foundation.
