Steven B. Abramson, MD Executive Vice President and Vice Dean for Education, Faculty, and Academic Affairs, Chief Academic Officer | NYU Langone Hassenfeld Children's Hospital
Steven B. Abramson, MD Executive Vice President and Vice Dean for Education, Faculty, and Academic Affairs, Chief Academic Officer | NYU Langone Hassenfeld Children's Hospital
A new tool, Ultra-Rapid droplet digital PCR (UR-ddPCR), has been developed by researchers at NYU Langone Health to identify the genetic markers of cancer cells in real-time during surgery. This advancement could allow surgeons to more precisely remove brain tumors while patients are still in the operating room. The study, published in the Cell Press journal Med, demonstrates that UR-ddPCR can detect tumor cells within 15 minutes and with high accuracy.
Dr. Daniel A. Orringer, a neurosurgeon and co-senior investigator of the study, explained the significance: “For many cancers, such as tumors in the brain, the success of cancer surgery and preventing the cancer’s return is predicated on removing as much of the tumor and surrounding cancer cells as is safely possible.” He added that this new method allows surgeons to determine which cells are cancerous with unprecedented accuracy.
The research team found that UR-ddPCR offers faster processing than standard ddPCR methods, which take several hours to produce results. In tests involving over 75 tissue samples from 22 patients undergoing glioma tumor removal at NYU Langone, UR-ddPCR provided results consistent with standard ddPCR and genetic sequencing.
“Our study shows that Ultra-Rapid droplet digital PCR could be a fast and efficient tool for making a molecular diagnosis during surgery for brain cancer,” said Dr. Gilad Evrony, another senior investigator involved in the research.
The development process included reducing DNA extraction time from 30 minutes to less than five minutes and optimizing chemical concentrations used in testing. These changes significantly decreased overall testing time.
Future steps include automating UR-ddPCR for easier use during surgeries and conducting clinical trials to compare patient outcomes against current diagnostic technologies. Researchers also aim to adapt this technology for other types of cancers by identifying additional genetic mutations.
The study was funded by National Institutes of Health grant R01CA226527, with equipment supplies donated by Bio-Rad. Drs. Orringer and Evrony have a pending patent application related to UR-ddPCR development.
Dr. Orringer holds shares in Invenio Imaging and has received consulting fees from Servier. He also has financial interests in Imagenomix alongside Dr. Matija Snuderl who additionally advises Heidelberg EPignostix and Halo Dx among others. These affiliations are managed according to NYU Langone Health's policies.
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