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The idealized goal of cancer surgery is to resect all cancerous tissue and no adjacent healthy tissue. To achieve this goal, physicians rely on their eyes, whether they are examining gross or microscopic tissue. An international team speculated that the metabolic status of tissue, as assessed by mass spectrometry, might aid in this process.
A handheld diathermy device was applied to tissue from the cervix to create a small “surgical aerosol” of compounds that was transferred through a suction tube to a mass spectrometer and analyzed immediately. Evaluated tissue samples included 16 healthy cervical specimens, 50 human papillomavirus (HPV)–positive specimens (with or without cervical intraepithelial neoplasia), and 21 cervical cancer specimen…