British medical researchers have developed a surgical knife which senses what it is cutting through, and can tell whether tissue is cancerous.

The intelligent cutting device has been name the iKnife, it analyses vapour emitted by surgeons using electro-surgical tools and checks if the tissue is cancerous or not.

In a recent study the knife was used on tissue samples from over 300 patients with a range of lung, breast, liver and other cancers.  The results were tested against a control group of 91 patients without cancer; doctors from the Imperial College London said the knife diagnosed tissue samples with 100 per cent accuracy.

The team responsible say the knife knows within three second whether a tissue is cancerous or benign after adding mass spectrometry comparisons. They say the normal tissues pathology analysis would take up to an hour.

Inventor of the knife, Dr Zoltan Takats of the Imperial College London, says “it provides a result almost instantly, allowing surgeons to carry out procedures with a level of accuracy that hasn't been possible before... we believe it has the potential to reduce tumour recurrence rates and enable more patients to survive.”

The iKnife is being used for further trials at three London hospitals before it will be considered for commercial release. 

The report on the knife's development and tests so far has been published in the Science Translational Medicine journal.