Seeing disease’s acidic side
Method may allow early detection of tumors by pH
By Amy Maxmen
Thanks to a new technique that enables scientists to detect a slight change in acidity, hard-to-find, small tumors may one day be caught earlier. By visualizing pH, the method can map out diseased tissue in mice, a team reported online and in the June 12 Nature.
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Researchers say the noninvasive, nontoxic and precise technique has potential to provide an early warning system for cancer and other diseases in people.
“Low pH is associated with many disease states, not just cancer, so the potential for this technique to be a general diagnostic test of malady could be huge,” says Sam Day, a biochemist at the Laboratory of Functional and Molecular Imaging at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.