High-Transmission-Efficiency and Side-Viewing Micro OIDRS Probe for Fast and Minimally-Invasive Tumor Margin...

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Optical Sensing
• Surgical Oncology

Background:

• Accurate determination of cancer-free margins during surgery is critical but challenging.
• Current methods for margin assessment are often time-consuming, delaying surgical decisions.
• There is a significant unmet need for rapid, intraoperative tumor margin identification.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design, fabricate, and test a novel miniaturized optical sensor probe for real-time surgical margin assessment.
• To evaluate the probe's capability for agile maneuvering and efficient data collection in confined anatomical spaces.
• To demonstrate the optical determination of tumor margins in a clinical setting.

Main Methods:

• Development of a miniaturized, side-viewing optical sensor probe using micromachined substrates and optical fibers.
• Implementation of oblique incidence diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (OIDRS) for tissue analysis.
• Testing the probe on a human pancreatic specimen to measure diffuse reflectance from contacted tissues.

Main Results:

• The optical sensor probe demonstrated effective maneuvering and data collection within narrow body cavities.
• OIDRS measurements successfully differentiated tumor margins from healthy tissue in a human pancreatic specimen.
• Optical margin determination results showed strong agreement with subsequent histological analysis.

Conclusions:

• The developed miniaturized optical sensor probe offers a promising solution for rapid, intraoperative tumor margin assessment.
• The side-viewing capability and OIDRS technique enable precise margin identification, potentially improving surgical outcomes.
• This technology addresses the critical need for faster and more accurate cancer margin determination during surgery.