The Canary in the Coal Mine: Biomaterial Implants to Monitor Cancer Recurrence.

Synthetic biomaterials implanted in the body induce a foreign body reaction characterized by chronic inflammation and fibrosis. In this issue of , Oakes and colleagues used biomaterial implants and their associated immunologic activity to develop a "metastasis sensor" for detection of tumor burden at distal sites. A scoring system was developed from computational analysis of gene expression patterns from implant biopsies that could predict the presence of tumor. This unexpected use of biomaterials for early detection of cancer provides a more accurate systemic sampling compared with blood or liquid biopsies and alleviates the need for inefficient imaging and biopsy sampling from potential metastatic target tissues..