This will provide a
sharp jump in the efficiency of cancer surgery and provide real confidence that
a tumor has been removed. Expect it to
be quickly adopted.
It will as obviously
serve as a diagnostic tool as well. It
is one small step to having this at the end of a fiber optic probe. This opens the door for a far superior way to
do biopsies.
Thus this is an
important breakthrough.
Device helps surgeons
see cancer cells during operations
February 18, 2014
When doctors are operating on a patient to
remove a cancer, they face a major challenge: telling healthy and cancerous
cells apart. But a new, as yet unnamed device being developed by researchers at
Washington University in St. Louis' School of Medicine could provide a safe,
affordable and portable solution.
The team's goggle-based device allows the
surgeon to see the cancer cells, glowing blue. Tests have shown it could make
visible tumors as small as 1 mm in diameter. To make the cells appear blue, the
FDA-approved contrast agent indozyanine is injected into the tumor.
The compact system is battery-operated,
wireless, wearable and most importantly, hands-free. A night vision viewer from
which it was developed was retrofitted to provide near-infrared excitation and
white light illumination simultaneously. The visual data captured by near-infrared
(NIR) fluorescence is displayed directly on the eyepiece with adjustable
amplification.
The wireless capability, adapted from a
battery-operated radio frequency video transmitter, allows the system to
transfer real-time video to a remote site, where the wearer's view can be
displayed graphically. This enables a remote expert to observe what is
happening during the operation from the point of view of the local surgeon, and
provide expert feedback and image analysis. This way the system could be applied
to point-of-care medical interventions, help generate real-time pathologic
assessment of tissues, and even allow for remote medical consulting.
The new eyepiece could represent an
improvement on current methods of intra-operative imaging. These are usually
expensive, logistically complex, time-consuming and at times risky, as in cases
when radioactive tracers are needed. These emit hazardous ionizing radiation to
both patients and surgeons. The blue dyes used for visualizing sentinel lymph nodes with
the naked eye, for example, can also cause adverse reactions.
The technology has been developed by a team
led by Samuel Achilefu, a PhD professor of radiology and biomedical engineering
at Washington University in St. Louis. Earlier in February, breast surgeon
Julie Margenthaler, an associate professor of surgery at the university,
performed a surgery wearing the glasses. “Imagine what it would mean if these
glasses eliminated the need for follow-up surgery and the associated pain,
inconvenience and anxiety," she said in a press statement.
Currently, surgeons usually remove the tumor
and some neighboring tissue that may not include cancer cells. Once analyzed,
and if cancer cells are found in the sample, then a second surgery is
recommended to remove additional tissue that once again will be tested for
cancer. In cases of breast cancer patients, between 20 and 25 percent of those who
have lumps removed require a second surgery.
An article with details on the technology
behind the device appeared in a recent edition of the Journal of Biomedical Optics.
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