Hyperspectral Imaging for Improving Cancer Surgery

Approximately 200,000 women in Europe and the US that are diagnosed with breastcancer are treated annually with breast conserving surgery. In this approach only the tumor and a small amount of healthy tissue are removed,leading to a better cosmetic result than a complete mastectomy, while the survival remains the same. Problem with this treatment is that in up to 35% of the patients, still tumor cells are found in the edge of the surgical specimen, meaning that surgical treatment is inadequate. These patients require additional treatment such as radiotherapy or additional surgery. This is a serious burden to the patient, reduces the cosmetic result and leads worldwide to 3 billion euro in additional costs.

In preliminary research at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, financed by the Dutch Cancer Society we developed a technique that should make it possible to screen the surface of a surgical specimen (tissueremoved  by surgery) for the presence of cancer cells within minutes.  This is in strong contrast to routine pathological investigation which takes 3-7 days. With our technique we think it should be possible to notify the surgeon if and where there is any residual cancertissue present. The method uses optical spectroscopy in the near infrared region. In our prior research we used laboratory equipment that allows us to interrogate the sample only point-by- point, which is too slow to be used effectively during surgery. In the proposed project we will further develop the methodusing a special hyperspectral camera developed for satelliteimaging by the Dutch company Cosine. We anticipate that after the project we can scan an entire surgical specimen within minutes and thus contributeto a decrease in the number of patients that require secondary treatment.