In a radical new invention, a team of scientists have created a laser that can track down cancer cells within 10 seconds and kill them, all from outside the skin.

Scientists from the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences have successfully tested a laser technology that detects and kills cancer cells from outside the skin before they deadly metastasize, or spread through the body.

“While being completely non-invasive, this technology has the potential to significantly inhibit metastasis progression,” study author Vladimir Zharov, told IEEE Spectrum.

New device uses lasers to diagnose, treat diseases without cutting skin

The technology, called Cytophone, works by shining a laser at the circulating tumor cells (CTCs). The cells end absorbing way more heat energy as compared to regular cells, which further causes them to expand and collapse, explained Futurism.

The laser blasted away the CTCs, greatly reducing the number that are circulating in the blood, along with finding blood clots as they circulate, which are one of the leading cause of death in cancer patients.

The results, according to the researchers, are promising with not a single false positive one or wrong diagnoses. Zharov said, “In one patient, we destroyed 96% of the tumor cells’, and this was even before they shone the laser to maximum power.

This treatment could permit doctors to quickly scan patient’s blood without even the need of removing it from them. It has the ability to scan a liter of blood in an hour, which is way quicker than the devices of such kind.

Zharov said, “Our test, which picks up a signal from spreading tumor cells, is 1,000 times more sensitive than existing techniques, which usually rely on much smaller amounts of blood from blood tests. The ultimate goal is to be able to use this to diagnose someone in the early stages of skin cancer also.”