# Liquid Biopsy Instrument for Ultra-Fast and Label-Free Detection of Circulating Tumor Cells

## TL;DR

This paper introduces CytoExam, a fast and non-invasive device that detects cancer cells in blood using advanced technology and artificial intelligence.

## Contribution

The novel contribution is the development of CytoExam, an automatic liquid biopsy instrument for ultra-fast and label-free detection of circulating tumor cells.

## Key findings

- CytoExam can detect circulating tumor cells in 15 minutes without the need for labels.
- Significant differences in cell counts and dielectric properties were observed between healthy and cancer patient samples.

## Abstract

Rapid diagnosis and real-time monitoring are of great important in the fight against cancer. However, most available diagnostic technologies are time-consuming and labor-intensive and are commonly invasive. Here, we describe CytoExam, an automatic liquid biopsy instrument designed based on inertial microfluidics and impedance cytometry, which uses a deep learning algorithm for the analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTCs). In silico and in vitro experiments demonstrated that CytoExam could achieve label-free detection of CTCs in the peripheral blood of cancer patients within 15 min. The clinical applicability of CytoExam was also verified using peripheral blood samples from 10 healthy donors and >50 patients with breast, colorectal, or lung cancer. Significant differences in the number of collected cells and predicted CTCs were observed between the 2 groups, with variations in the dielectric properties of the collected cells from cancer patients also being observed. The ultra-fast and minimally invasive features of CytoExam may pave the way for new paths for cancer diagnosis and scientific research.