A urine test developed by researchers at the Nagoya University in Japan can pinpoint a person who has a brain tumor — regardless of its size or mali

Your pee could tell you if you have a brain tumor — with great accuracy, study says

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2021-06-18 20:00:20

A urine test developed by researchers at the Nagoya University in Japan can pinpoint a person who has a brain tumor — regardless of its size or malignancy — with 100% accuracy, according to a new study.

Decorated with 100 million zinc oxide nanowires, the test works by plucking tiny molecules called microRNAs from just a millimeter of urine in much greater quantities and varieties than traditional tests.

It can be sterilized, produced on massive scales and completed by patients any time anywhere with “minimal effort,” according to the study published recently in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

The test’s non-invasive nature and easy handling could help to earlier detect and treat aggressive brain tumors, which go largely unnoticed until symptoms appear and have grown too large to be surgically removed, eventually improving brain cancer patient survival.

“Urine can be collected easily without putting a burden on the human body,” study corresponding author Dr. Atsushi Natsume said in a statement. “Urine-based liquid biopsy hadn’t been fully investigated for patients with brain tumors, because none of the conventional methodologies can extract microRNAs from urine efficiently in terms of varieties and quantities. So, we decided to develop a device capable of doing it.”