At the University of Miami School of Medicine, Drs. Richard Cote and Ram Datar are pursuing a nano-scale test to detect cancer in the blood before it spreads.

When a patient with, say, prostate cancer, undergoes surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy, what comes next is an agonizing wait to see if the tumor was eradicated or whether it is quietly metastasizing to other organs.

Cote and Datar are creating a test to trap and identify cancer cells circulating in the blood before they reach the liver, brain or lymph nodes. A sample of the patient's blood is passed through a new microfilter they are developing, trapping cancer cells, which are larger than healthy blood cells.

The cancer cells are identified as to type of cancer by the use of ``nano-crystal quantum dots.'' Quantum dots are made by dissolving metal oxides -- often of cadmium and selenium -- in a boiling solvent, then precipitating them into tiny particles only two to 10 nanometers wide. At this near-atomic level, the dots take on different physical properties -- glowing in brightly vivid, even fluorescent, colors that vary with their size.

The colorful nano-dots are attached to anti-bodies the body produces to fight the cancer. Together, they seek out and bind to any floating cancer cells, tagging them as, in this case, prostate cancer.

Similar tests can identify breast, colorectal, bladder and other cancers.

``By knowing whether cancer cells remain in the blood, the oncologest knows if the currentanti-cancer therapy is working or if something else needs to be tried,'' Datar says.

The test is three to five years from FDA approval, Cote says.

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