Cancer detecting credit card kit

The credit card is fed into a machine

Scientists are pioneering credit card-sized "medical detection kits", which can test for cancers of the bladder, lung and cervix.

Researchers from St Andrews University have already patented the technology, which could be available in GP practices within a decade.

Professors Thomas Krauss and Krishan Dholakia have been given £850,000 to work on the device.

It could reduce the need for costly and time-consuming laboratory work.

A pin-prick of blood is smeared on the cards and placed in a bigger machine.

The process would give much faster results than current testing techniques.

'Potentially usable'

Professor Krauss, a lecturer in optoelectronics in the School of Physics and Astronomy, said: "At present, a range of diseases are detected by arrays of test tubes and expensive and complicated machines operated by skilled personnel.

"Lab-on-a-chip devices simplify biochemical testing and allow processes usually confined to a remote lab to take place at the point of care, for example in a GP practice.

"Our technology integrates lasers and detectors right onto the chip.

"Developing these techniques 'on chip' will make them potentially usable by patients as well as the medical profession."

Professor Krauss added: "Any approach that simplifies a given test will reduce cost, but also make the given test more widely available and cover a myriad of diseases.

"By being mass-producible, the devices will also be disposable, thus avoiding problems of cross-contamination".