From DESI to the MasSpec Pen: Ambient Ionization Mass Spectrometry for Tissue Analysis and Intrasurgical Cancer Diagnosis

Surgery is a common form of treatment in patients with solid tumors.  Depending on the cancer, surgery may be used to remove cancer that is contained within a specific area, to debulk a tumor, or to ease symptoms caused by a tumor.  In each case, it is critical to distinguish cancerous from noncancerous tissue during the operation. Today, pathologists perform rapid microscopic investigations of biopsied tissue and make the diagnosis.  In the future, this may be conducted using mass spectrometry based measurements.  Ambient ionization mass spectrometry methods make localized molecular level chemical analysis of tissue samples possible at atmospheric pressure and without prior sample purification and pre-treatment.  Over the past decades, scientific advances have extended the role of these methods from the research laboratory to the operating room.  The April 2018 issue of Clinical Chemistry includes a commentary on the different technologies and their potential in cancer diagnosis.