A group of South Korean researchers has discovered a way to detect cancer within a small blood sample.

The National Cancer Center said Monday that the team led by Cho Young-koo successfully detected and isolated circulating tumor cells(CTC) in the blood samples of patients with early-stage breast cancer.

The center said researchers developed a method using magnetic nanowires to help efficiently isolate and detect CTCs in especially patients with early-stage cancers.

The discovery is noteworthy given that cancer cells are extremely hard to detect among the billions of cells that make up the human body.

The findings were published in the latest edition of the journal "Biomaterials."