🇨🇳🔬 Chinese “Black-Hole” Blood Purifier Traps Cancer Cells in Mouse Tests Chinese researchers have tested a blood purifier that captures circulating tumor cells, with a combined treatment helping mice survive longer after breast cancer surgery. The experimental device targets cells that escape tumors and travel through the bloodstream, a route through which cancer can spread. A Shanghai Jiao Tong University-led team described the “black-hole” system in Microsystems & Nanoengineering on November 2. The work remains a proof of concept in animals, but offers a possible way to tackle cancer cells left circulating after a tumor is removed. A pump draws blood through an external chamber lined with antibodies that bind to EpCAM, a protein found on the surface of many cancer cells. The chamber traps those cells before the blood returns to the body, adding physical removal to treatments intended to kill them. In laboratory circulation tests using human breast cancer cells, capture efficiency exceeded 99% at low flow rates and stayed around 95% at 1.2 milliliters per hour. Those figures describe cell capture under experimental conditions, not a cancer cure rate or demonstrated performance in patients. For the animal experiment, researchers removed breast tumors and divided the mice into four groups receiving no further treatment, chemotherapy alone, purification alone or both treatments. By day 28, 50% of mice given the combined treatment were alive, compared with 20% in either single-treatment group and none in the untreated group. The researchers also reported delayed recurrence and reduced metastasis with the combined approach. Tests covered several cancer cell lines carrying EpCAM, suggesting the capture method could have uses beyond breast cancer, although that does not establish effectiveness against those cancers in patients. Moving from mice to people requires processing far larger blood volumes, supporting repeated sessions and establishing long-term safety. Organ examinations found no overt toxicity in the mice, but the team says larger animal studies and further engineering are needed before clinical feasibility can be judged. China’s experiment opens a possible additional line of treatment after surgery. If larger studies and human trials confirm the benefit, blood purification could help chemotherapy reduce the pool of circulating cells capable of spreading cancer to other organs. @NewRulesGeo❗Follow us on X