Cruces Hospital is one of the partners in the LABONFOIL project (Laboratory Skin Patches and SmartCards based on foils and compatible with a Smartphone), together with the Gaiker and Ikerlan research centres, coordinated by the latter.

This is research that combines the integration of various instruments into one tool that may have applications in areas as diverse as the detection of food poisoning, monitoring patients with colorectal cancer, the detection of cocaine or the analysis of climate change, among others. The final objective of the project is to design a tool that is cheap and which enables a fast, reliable diagnosis in different situations.

The Oncology Service at Cruces Hospital is involved in the research related to colorectal cancer. Work in this area may mean development of a portable diagnosis tool for a doctor’s surgery, which will reduce the need for invasive practices in monitoring the treatment of patients with this type of cancer.

Ikerlan research centre is in charge of coordinating the research consortium Optolabcard on fast diagnosis, which also has the participation of Gaiker and BIOEF, together with a series of other European institutions and centres.