Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, US, have developed a portable device that can connect to a smartphone and analyse a tissue sample to determine if the patient's cancer is malignant.
The $200 portable device is designed to display the findings on the monitor of the smartphone.
The research team evaluated the device in 50 people who had their abnormal tissue biopsied for testing.
By looking at a combination of four biomarkers, researchers were able to correctly predict if the cancer was malignant with 96% accuracy, better than 84% accuracy seen in current methods.
To validate the work, a second test was conducted in a group of 20 people, in which the test showed 100% accuracy.
Researchers are planning to conduct further tests to develop the device, and are also looking to customise the test for various types of cancer, starting with ovarian cancer.