Science finds new system that helps in early diagnosis of cancer

Dand according to information released on Thursday by UIB, the study published in the journal Computers in Biology and Medicine proposes an innovative strategy that combines nanosensors and mathematical models to detect biomarkers of cancerous diseases in the blood, substances that indicate the presence of a disease.

The work of the Research Group on Topological Models for the Treatment of Diffuse Information (Motibo), which is also part of the Instituto de Investigação em Saúde das Baleares (Idisba), focuses on the use of advances in nanotechnology, which allow to measure with great precision the concentration of chemicals in the human body.

Researchers theoretically propose a system in which a set of nanorobots, small devices on a nanometric scale, circulates through the bloodstream and detects the presence of biomarkers associated with cancer.

The information is transmitted to an external device, which analyzes the data and assists in the diagnosis.

The main result of the study is the development of a more robust and stable decision-making method than the previous models.

Instead of relying on a fixed limit, the system incorporates an algorithm inspired by collective intelligence, similar to the behavior of insect swarms, which allows better interpretation of the information obtained by nanorobots.

This translates into a greater ability to differentiate normal from pathological situations, even in environments with noise or biological variability.

Regarding the methodology, researchers adapted mathematical models of the human circulatory system previously developed by other authors and simulated the behavior of nanorobots through multiple computational simulations.

In this model, nanorobots move through the network of blood vessels, detect biomarkers and accumulate information about their presence. Subsequently, a “merger center” processes the data using a Markov chain-based algorithm to determine whether there are evidences of cancer.

According to researchers, this research brings a new approach to the fight against cancer, based on the combination of nanotechnology and mathematics.

Although it is still a theoretical model validated through simulations, the results demonstrate the potential of this technology to improve diagnosis and advance to a more accurate and less invasive medicine.