Research Project
7672617
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Bladder cancer is a common and costly disease. More than 60,000 new cases of bladder cancer are diagnosed each year in the U.S. It is the fourth most common cancer among men and the 10th among women, with a prevalence of about 500,000 in the US. Our compact NMR device will provide a rapid, accurate differential diagnosis of bladder cancer by detecting the tumor cells in urine that have sloughed off the bladder wall. Our device will excel at finding very rare cancer cells, and the identification of cells in our device will be more sensitive than the morphological identification used in cytology. Our procedure will be quick (tens of minutes as against several hours for cytology) and may not require a pathologist, thus reducing the time and cost of the test. We will achieve this high performance in a compact, cost-effective, ease-to-use device, enabling point of care diagnostics and offering earlier bladder cancer detection in those who might be ill for the first time and, especially, to individuals susceptible to recurrence of the disease. The device proposed here represents possibly the world's smallest NMR. A prototype has been built wherein the magnet (with field strength of 1T) and the sample probe together weigh significantly less than 1 kg, as shown in Preliminary Results. Thus, provided it performs as intended to sensitively detect bladder cancer cells, this will be an attractive and affordable device to be used even at points of care. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Bladder cancer is a common and costly disease. We propose to build a compact and inexpensive NMR device which will provide a rapid, accurate diagnosis of bladder cancer in urine that have sloughed off the bladder wall. This development will enable point of care diagnostics and will offer earlier bladder cancer detection in those who might be ill for the first time and, especially, to individuals susceptible to recurrence of the disease.
