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A novel technique to detect very low levels of cancer cells in blood could provide an easier and more effective way to monitor progression of the disease. The inexpensive microfluidics device, designed by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), in Boston, might eventually be used to tailor cancer treatments to individual patients by monitoring cancer cell counts and by identifying the molecular attributes of an individual’s cancer.

Malignant tumors continually shed cancer cells into the bloodstream, and these cells can spread the disease to other tissues. This process, known as metastasis, is the deadliest aspect of cancer: it is the culprit in nine out of ten cancer deaths. But the circulating tumor cells are so rare?with a concentration of onlyone in a billion cells in the bloodstream?that scientists haven’t been able to detect them easily or accurately enough to be clinically useful. Now Mehmet Toner, a bioengineer at MGH and Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues have designed a microfluidics device that can analyze whole blood in large enough volumes to detect these scarce cells.