Children with suspected leukaemia will be the first to undergo treatment with a newly-acquired piece of hi-tech medical equipment.
The Bone Marrow for Leukaemia Trust and the National Millennium Committee have jointly funded the purchase of a Real Time PCR machine, which has been installed in the National Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at St James's Hospital, Dublin.
According to Prof Shaun McCann, head of the haematology department at the hospital, the PCR machine will be used to make the diagnosis of leukaemia more precise, which in turn will increase the percentage of patients being cured.
"It will allow us to take out a tiny amount of DNA from each patient with leukaemia and lymphoma. This will be magnified almost one million times and will serve as a type of fingerprint for that patient's leukaemia or cancer".
The technology can also be used to monitor children during and after treatment to detect disease recurrence. This will allow early intervention by doctors, which should lead to improved survival rates.
The service will eventually be extended to adults.
Real Time PCR is central to the latest cancer treatment strategies in which drugs can be modified to take account of the "fingerprinting" of individual tumours.