WEDNESDAY, July 17 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental surgical "knife" can accurately identify cancerous tissue as a surgeon cuts through it, creating the potential for shorter cancer surgeries that remove all traces of tumor, according to a study co-written by the device's developers.

The "iKnife" uses electricity to cauterize surgical incisions as they are made, and then samples the resulting smoke to determine whether the tissue being cut is healthy or cancerous.

The iKnife accurately identified cancerous and healthy tissue 97 percent of the time in recent human trials, according to the study published July 17 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

However, one cancer expert said it's too soon to tell if the device will make a difference in real-world practice and whether it would be worth the hefty cost.

The new technology analyzes the smoke from cauterized incisions and compares the results to a database of nearly 3,000 tissue-specific "signatures."

It can be difficult for cancer surgeons to tell if they've completely removed a tumor. They currently must send tissue samples to a pathologist and then wait 20 to 30 minutes -- with the patient still under anesthesia -- to see if they have successfully removed all cancer cells, according to background information in the study.

By comparison, diagnosis using the iKnife takes up to three seconds, said study co-author Zoltan Takats, a researcher with computational and systems medicine in the department of surgery and cancer at Imperial College London.

"We believe using this technology, since there is no waiting time, can significantly reduce the amount of time the patient spends in the operating theater," Takats said. "We also can hopefully decrease the local tumor recurrence rate, which in cases like breast cancer can be as high as 30 percent."

Researchers developed and tested the technology with funding from the European Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research in Great Britain, Takats said. They have since formed a company, MediMass, funded by venture capital to further develop and market the iKnife.

The trials reported in the new study involved 81 patients undergoing cancer surgery at three Hungarian hospitals. The iKnife's readings were compared to post-surgery analysis of the same tissue samples to determine the device's accuracy.