Could A Pen Tell Whether or Not You Have Cancer?

A recent Fox News report states that a MasSpec Pen is capable of detecting whether or not an individual has cancer.

An Overview of the MasSpec Pen

According to researchers, the MasSpec Pen contains technology which can identify the existence of cancer in under thirty seconds. The pen’s technology works when the subject touches the pen. After contact with the subject’s tissue, water droplets leave the MasSpec pen and withdraw tissue molecules. Finally, the water goes into a mass spectrometer which studies the molecules of the subject at hand.

Research assistant Marta Sans provides additional details:

“The MasSpec Pen is a handheld device coupled to a mass spectrometer that can diagnose cancer during surgery in twenty seconds. Then, we can create a molecular fingerprint that can say if this is cancer or if it’s not based on the molecules of the pen.”

The precision of the MasSpec Pen is also sound and well documented. Researchers furthermore affirm that after using the technology on 300 samples, MasSpec’s rate of correctness reached 96%. Furthermore, the technology recognized four different types of cancer.