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

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.

Medics used advanced MRI scans to identify different areas of tumours and take multiple samples at once to better understand their biology.

This could potentially help personalise cancer treatment, they suggest, with hopes that patients could one day forego biopsy completely as doctors would be able to study tumours from scan images the same way they would under a microscope.

For the study, led by a team at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, 12 patients with suspected etroperitoneal and pelvic sarcomas (RPS) – a rare group of soft tissue tumours that develop in the pelvis and the back of the abdominal cavity – were given smart biopsies.

Dr Edward Johnston, consultant interventional radiologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and The Institute of Cancer Research, London, told the PA news agency: “Current biopsy just involves sampling one region rather than multiple regions. Secondly, it doesn’t have a very detailed MRI acquisition beforehand. So we want to make it a lot more thought out.”

The team is now exploring expanding the technique for other tumour types.

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Source: The Independent, 9 January 2025