Sci Adv: The Chinese Academy of Sciences, in conjunction with the City University of Hong Kong, has developed microfluidic chip for gastric cancer detection.

Gastric carcinoma is one of the most common cancers, with more than 1 million new cases and nearly 800,000 deaths worldwide each year.
difficult to diagnose peritoneal metastasis early is the main cause of poor prognosis of stomach cancer.
recently, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in conjunction with the City University of Hong Kong, has developed a microfluidic control technology that provides unlabeled separation and characterization of gastric cancer cells, which contributes to the early diagnosis of stomach cancer.
the separation and characterization of cancer cells is critical for the early diagnosis of peritoneal metastasis.
however, due to the low content of cancer cells in the patient's abdominal irrigation lotion, the sensitivity of the traditional detection method is low and can not meet the clinical needs.
, researchers from the Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and CityU of Hong Kong have developed a microfluidic control technology for photoelectric-induced electrodynamics (OEK) unlabeled separation and characterization of gastric cancer cells, which has high effectiveness and sensitivity and can quickly detect abdominal metastasis and obtain electrical properties of cells.
their findings, published in the August 5 issue of the journal Science Advances, are titled "Detect and free cancer from cells and peritoneal lavages using optical econed eikinetics (OEK) " In clinical practice, cytological examinations of water and peritoneal peritone irrigation are usually performed to detect free cancer cells in the peritoneal cavity.
, however, it is difficult for pathologists to distinguish stomach cancer cells from interperinal cortex cells, the main component of peritoneal water and peritoneal irrigation lotion.
, cytology checks rely on cell staining, which is time-consuming and kills cells.
therefore, there is an urgent need for a new, unlabeled, fast diagnostic method to identify and isolate living stomach cancer cells with high sensitivity.
in the study, researchers developed a new microfluidic control chip called photo-induced electrodynamics (OEK), which isolates living stomach cancer cells from the patient's abdominal water and characterizes its electrical properties.
established a cell polymerization model and a cell membrane capacitive solution model.
OEK microfluidic control chip is used to detect significant differences in size and electrical characteristics between peritoneal metastasis and cell membrane capacitive gastric cancer cells and celiac irrigation cells.
, oEK microfluidic chip therefore theoretically separates stomach cancer cells from abdominal water and peritoneal irrigation lotion. A diagram of the
(A) OEK system.
the system consists of a computer, a projector, a spotlight, a signal generator, a 3D motion table, a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera and an OEK microfluidic chip.
(B) drawing device diagram.
plastic hoses attached to the injection pump are used to collect separated cells.
(C) the structure of OEK microfluidic chips.
the chip consists of three parts: glass coated with tin oxide film (ITO glass), double-sided tape for the manufacture of microchannels, and coated hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) ITO glass.
further experiments, the researchers successfully isolated stomach cancer cells from the abdominal water of six patients, with a purity of up to 71%.
compared with the traditional clinical peritoneal metastasis test, the new method solves the problem of low sensitivity.
this is also a non-label-free, non-destructive and fast technology in which researchers can isolate and collect stomach cancer cells in OEK microfluidic chips in 5 minutes.
they also obtained cell membrane capacitors from stomach cancer cells and peritoneal irrigation cells.
this data can be used as biomarkers for cell marker information.
cell polarization model and cell separation results show that OEK microfluidic control chip is capable of detecting free cancer cells in abdominal water, with the advantages of fast speed, simple operation and unlabeled, can accelerate the diagnosis of stomach cancer metastasis.
, this is the first time OEK has been successfully used in the separation of clinical gastric cancer ascites samples.
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