A knife has been developed that is able to detect cancerous and healthy tissue. On general basis, surgeons when carry out cancer-related surgery, they use knives.

These knives heat the tissues when they are cut and as a result, a sharp-smelling smoke is produced. Dr. Zoltan Takats of Imperial College London, who has invented the knife, used the same concept to come up with a knife that uses smoke to detect cancerous and non-cancerous tissue.

The knife picks up the smell to detect whether the tissue is cancerous or non-cancerous. Three lights appear on a monitor. Green means that tissue is healthy, read light means that it is cancerous and if there is yellow light then it means that the knife has been unable to identify the tissue.

If the knife is proved to be accurate then it will not let surgeons to remove extra tissues. Only those tissues will be removed that are cancerous. Till now, surgeons have to send tissues to lab for assessment. It takes quite a lot of time and patient lies on operation table.

Such thing is not going to take place when the new knife will be used. "This is a fascinating science and we need to adopt any technology that works to save patients", said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld from the American Cancer Society.