All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
Surgeons will soon have a "smart" scalpel
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
The new electric scalpel allows the boundaries of a malignant tumor to be identified during surgery, without removing healthy tissue. The analysis takes a couple of seconds.
Surgical intervention to remove a malignant neoplasm requires virtuoso precision from the surgeon - to completely rid the patient of the tumor, not allowing it to grow again, and not to affect unaffected cells. It turns out that the doctor must be able to distinguish healthy tissue from diseased tissue during the operation. In such conditions, you need to be either a "surgeon from God" or have a special intuition. It turns out that nothing is impossible.
Scientists from Imperial College (Great Britain, London) and the University of Debrecen (Hungary) came to the aid of their colleagues by developing a “smart” scalpel that distinguishes between affected cells and healthy ones during surgery.
The researchers were helped by a well-known fact: the lipid membrane protects cells from the environment. In turn, the quantitative ratio of lipids allows us to determine which tissue the cell belongs to. Tumor tissues have their own ratio of lipid membranes. Previously, in order to identify healthy and damaged cells, it was necessary to distinguish these structures, as well as analyze them after purifying the lipids using a mass spectrometer.
The idea of performing lipid analysis during surgery came to Hungarian chemist Zoltan Takacs. It was logical to use an electrosurgical knife to cauterize blood vessels as a tool. The cauterization process promotes the formation of the necessary number of ionized molecules to recreate the lipid identity of the cell. The steam and smoke released at the cauterization site, passed through a mass spectrometer, help in identifying the cells.
The tests of the "smart" knife ("iKnife - Intelligent Knife"), which looks more like tweezers, were conducted on tissues after surgery on 300 patients. Having processed approximately three thousand samples using this method, the new surgical device successfully distinguished healthy cells from tumor cells in any human organ. The instrument was able to detect even secondary tumor processes that appeared through the formation of metastases from the remaining malignant cells.
The created database of healthy and diseased tissues led the scientists to test the electric scalpel in real conditions. The "smart" surgical instrument participated in 81 operations and in almost all cases accurately identified diseased and healthy cells. The recognition process took from one to three seconds, which became another advantage of the method, because traditional analysis took at least half an hour.
The unique invention "iKnife" can become an indispensable assistant in oncological surgery. It remains to be seen whether the new instrument removes tumors more accurately and efficiently. This requires time to observe patients operated on with the "smart" knife.
It is also necessary to conduct tests for situations where a cancerous tumor is located on the border of several tissues and it is difficult to identify healthy cells from diseased ones. It remains to be hoped that soon every surgeon will have a "smart" scalpel.