Traditional skin biopsies are employed to diagnose questionable lesions and to provide an accurate prognosis of disease where present. However, these techniques are painful and render the lesion unsuitably damaged for further study. One major problem is that patients can present with hundreds of suspicious actinic keratosis lesions or nevi. In addition, these lesions commonly present on cosmetically sensitive areas, e.g. the face. This decreases acceptance of conventional biopsy strategies and exemplifies the clinical need for less invasive method of biopsy.
We have developed a microbiopsy platform as a technology that can enable repeated, minimally invasive sampling without the need of local anesthesia and without pain and scarring - while providing enough tissue for molecular detection of disease and live-cell assays. The application of the microbiopsy device induces a barely visible puncture site with subtle to no irritation. We have successfully collected micro-sized skin biopsies containing 1000-3000 skin cells from volunteers. We have isolated 5-20 ng of DNA and RNA, and approximately 0.4 µg of protein from these microbiopsies.
This new biopsy platform will help to fill both clinical and research needs. It will obtain targeted molecular pathology data to enable improved molecular diagnoses of difficult cases, without inflicting pain and scars. Additionally, this device will set the framework for advancing clinical research for neoplastic skin diseases.