To answer the question what is nanotechnology, understand that a nanometer is one billionth of a meter.
Try to imagine 1/80,000 the width of a human hair to put that into perspective.
Nanotechnology is emerging technology that is giving hope of advancement in diverse fields including cancer detection.
Since early detection is the key to cancer treatment, nanotechnology is now offering exciting new possibilities in that tools developed by virtue of nano technology could detect disease in very small amounts of cells or tissues.
There is additionally the expectation that it may be possible to be able to enter and monitor cells within a living body with nanotechnology.
With traditional diagnostic implements for detecting cancer, it may not be possible to detect the presence of the cancer in a very small proportion or percentage of cells.
What nano-technological implements could do is increase sensitivity to such presence of cancer cells very significantly.
Where nanotechnology may also come in useful is, it may make it possible to run tests without physically altering the cells or tissue they take from a patient, which may be significant in that samples that are used to screen for cancer may typically be of a limited quantity.
