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Circulating tumor cells are typically found in the peripheral blood of patients, offering a crucial pathway for the early diagnosis and prediction of cancer. Traditional methods for early cancer diagnosis are inefficient and inaccurate, making it difficult to isolate tumor cells from a large number of cells. In this paper, a new spiral microfluidic chip with asymmetric cross-section is proposed for rapid, high-throughput, label-free enrichment of CTCs in peripheral blood. A mold of the desired flow channel structure was prepared and inverted to make a trapezoidal cross-section using a micro-nanotechnology process of 3D printing. After a systematic study of how flow rate, channel width, and particle concentration affect the performance of the device, we utilized the device to simulate cell sorting of 6 μm, 15 μm, and 25 μm PS (Polystyrene) particles, and the separation efficiency and separation purity of 25 μm PS particles reached 98.3% and 96.4%. On this basis, we realize the enrichment of a large number of CTCs in diluted whole blood (5 mL). The results show that the separation efficiency of A549 was 88.9% and the separation purity was 96.4% at a high throughput of 1400 μL/min. In conclusion, we believe that the developed method is relevant for efficient recovery from whole blood and beneficial for future automated clinical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pancreatic cancer is a highly lethal disease with a poor prognosis. Its early diagnosis and accurate treatment mainly rely on medical imaging, so accurate medical image analysis is especially vital for pancreatic cancer patients. However, medical image analysis of pancreatic cancer is facing challenges due to ambiguous symptoms, high misdiagnosis rates, and significant financial costs. Artificial intelligence (AI) offers a promising solution by relieving medical personnel's workload, improving clinical decision-making, and reducing patient costs. This study focuses on AI applications such as segmentation, classification, object detection, and prognosis prediction across five types of medical imaging: CT, MRI, EUS, PET, and pathological images, as well as integrating these imaging modalities to boost diagnostic accuracy and treatment efficiency. In addition, this study discusses current hot topics and future directions aimed at overcoming the challenges in AI-enabled automated pancreatic cancer diagnosis algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Screening methods available for colorectal cancer (CRC) to date are burdened by poor reliability and low patient adherence and compliance. An altered pattern of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled breath has been proposed as a non-invasive potential diagnostic tool for distinguishing CRC patients from healthy controls (HC). The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability of an innovative portable device containing a micro-gas chromatograph in enabling rapid, on-site CRC diagnosis through analysis of patients' exhaled breath. In this prospective trial, breath samples were collected in a tertiary referral center of colorectal surgery, and analysis of the chromatograms was performed by the Biomedical Engineering Department. The breath of patients with CRC and HC was collected into Tedlar bags through a Nafion filter and mouthpiece with a one-way valve. The breath samples were analyzed by an automated portable gas chromatography device. Relevant volatile biomarkers and discriminant chromatographic peaks were identified through machine learning, linear discriminant analysis and principal component analysis. A total of 68 subjects, 36 patients affected by histologically proven CRC with no evidence of metastases and 32 HC with negative colonoscopies, were enrolled. After testing a training set (18 CRC and 18 HC) and a testing set (18 CRC and 14 HC), an overall specificity of 87.5%, sensitivity of 94.4% and accuracy of 91.2% in identifying CRC patients was found based on three VOCs. Breath biopsy may represent a promising non-invasive method of discriminating CRC patients from HC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breast cancer results from a disruption of certain cells in breast tissue that undergo uncontrolled growth and cell division. These cells most often accumulate and form a lump called a tumor, which may be benign (non-cancerous) or malignant (cancerous). Malignant tumors can spread quickly throughout the body, forming tumors in other areas, which is called metastasis. Standard screening techniques are insufficient in the case of metastasis; therefore, new and advanced techniques based on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and regression models have been introduced, the primary aim of which is to automatically diagnose breast cancer through the use of advanced techniques, classifiers, and real images. Real fine-needle aspiration (FNA) images were collected from Wisconsin, and four classifiers were used, including three machine learning models and one regression model: the support vector machine (SVM), naive Bayes (NB), k-nearest neighbors (k-NN), and decision tree (DT)-C4.5. According to the accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity results, the SVM algorithm had the best performance; it was the most powerful computational classifier with a 97.13% accuracy and 97.5% specificity. It also had around a 96% sensitivity for the diagnosis of breast cancer, unlike the models used for comparison, thereby providing an exact diagnosis on the one hand and a clear classification between benign and malignant tumors on the other hand. As a future research prospect, more algorithms and combinations of features can be considered for the precise, rapid, and effective classification and diagnosis of breast cancer images for imperative decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]