Researchers in the UK have developed a new handheld scanner which they hope will transform cancer and arthritis diagnosis.

The device can generate highly detailed 3D images in just seconds, paving the way for them to be used in a clinical setting for the first time and offering the potential for earlier disease diagnosis.

A new study found that the technology can deliver imaging scans to doctors in real time.

Corresponding author Professor Paul Beard, of UCL Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering and the Wellcome/EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences, said: “The breakthrough in this study is the acceleration in the time it takes to acquire images, which is between 100 and 1,000 times faster than previous scanners.

“This speed avoids motion-induced blurring, providing highly detailed images of a quality that no other scanner can provide.

“It also means that rather than taking five minutes or longer, images can be acquired in real time, making it possible to visualise dynamic physiological events.”

He added that a potential use for the new scanner was to assess inflammatory arthritis, which requires scanning all 20 finger joints in both hands.

The new scanner would allow this to be done in just a few minutes, whereas older scanners take nearly an hour, which may be too long for elderly, frail patients.

Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) imaging uses laser-generated ultrasound waves to visualise subtle changes in the less-than-millimetre-scale veins and arteries up to 15mm deep.

Up until now, existing PAT technology – which requires patients to hold completely still or risk blurring the images – has been too slow to produce high enough quality 3D images.

Older PAT scanners can take more than five minutes to take an image, but by reducing that time to a few seconds or less, image quality is improved and it is far more suitable for people who are frail or poorly, experts say.

Researchers say the new scanner could help to diagnose cancer, cardiovascular disease and arthritis in three to five years’ time, subject to further testing.

In the study, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the team tested the scanner on 10 patients with type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis or breast cancer, along with seven healthy people.

In three patients with type 2 diabetes, the scanner was able to produce detailed 3D images of the feet, and it was also used to visualise the skin inflammation linked to breast cancer.

Andrew Plumb, associate professor of medical imaging at UCL and consultant radiologist at UCLH and a senior author of the study, said: “One of the complications often suffered by people with diabetes is low blood flow in the extremities, such as the feet and lower legs, due to damage to the tiny blood vessels in these areas.

“But until now we haven’t been able to see exactly what is happening to cause this damage or characterise how it develops.”

With cancer, tumours often have a high density of small blood vessels that are too small to see with other imaging techniques.

The researchers say their new technology could be used to detect the tumour and monitor it relatively easily.

Dr Nam Huynh, from UCL Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, who developed the scanner with colleague Dr Edward Zhang, said: “It could also be used to help cancer surgeons better distinguish tumour tissue from normal tissue by visualising the blood vessels in the tumour, helping to ensure all of the tumour is removed during surgery and minimising the risk of recurrence.

“I can envisage lots of ways it will be useful.”

Dr Sam Godfrey, research information lead at Cancer Research UK, which helped fund the study, said: “Cancer is able to hijack our bloodstream, rapidly constructing irregular networks of tiny vessels that help fuel the tumour’s growth.

“This research gives us the ability to see these networks for the first time with really high levels of detail.

“It’s early days but this scanner is an exciting development which could allow us to see more of the tumour in a less invasive way.”

Unlike earlier PAT scanners, which measured the ultrasound waves at more than 10,000 different points over the tissue surface one at a time, the new scanner detects them at multiple points simultaneously, reducing how long it takes to get an image.