Robot-guided ‘smart biopsy’ technique tested on patients in UK first

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy A robot-guided “smart biopsy” technique has been tested on UK patients for the first time, with researchers hopeful it could spell the end of invasive procedures for those with suspected cancer. By understanding a tumour in more detail, doctors can basically select the treatments that are most likely to work on an individual patient Dr Edward Johnston For the study, led by a team at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, 12 patients with suspected etroperitoneal and pelvic sarcomas – a rare group of soft tissue tumours that develop in the pelvis and the back of the abdominal cavity – were given smart biopsies. “And then the assumption there, which is shown to be incorrect in studies up to this point, is that if you hit an orange, then the whole tumour is an orange – that’s not true.” One day, you could just do an MRI scan, and you would know exactly what that tumour is Dr Edward Johnston He also hopes using advanced MRI scans to look at tumours could eventually allow doctors to assess images in the same way they would under a microscope. “One day, you could just do an MRI scan, and you would know exactly what that tumour is.” All of the smart biopsies in the study were done within a one hour slot, according to Dr Johnston.