Electrochemical measuring of reactive oxygen species levels in the blood to detect ratio of high-density neutrophils, suitable to alarm presence of cancer in suspicious cases.

Here for the first time, a real-time electrochemical assay on unprocessed blood was designed to detect the presence of cancer in patients. The system has been based on the recently approved pathway, which indicates that the abundance of immature and mature low-density neutrophils (LDNs) with reduced ROS production in peripheral blood is increased with the presence of active cancer tumors. Reduced ROS/HO released from LDNs play the main role in determining the ROS/HO levels of peripheral blood. In contrast, HDNs with increased levels of released ROS/HO have higher concentrations than LDNs in normal cases. Hence, the reduced level of ROS species in peripheral blood recorded by our carbon nanostructure decorated sensor in less than 30 seconds showed a great pre-warning about the presence of non-treated cancer in patients with suspicious mass who have been sent for further evaluations.