Custom optical imaging system for ex-vivo breast cancer detection based on spectral signature

Breast cancer is a popular well-known tumor in women globally and the subsequent driving reason for malignancy death. The purpose of the present study is to develop Low cost, commercial, and affordable system that discriminates malignant from normal breast tissues by exploiting the unique properties of Hyperspectral (HS) Imaging.

The difference in the optical properties of the investigated breast tissues gives various reactions to light transmission, absorption, and especially the reflection over the spectral range. A custom optical imaging system (COIS) was designed to assess variable responses to monochromatic LEDs (415, 565, 660 nm) to highlight the differences in the reflectance properties of malignant/normal tissue. Statistical analysis was computed for determining the ideal wavelength to differentiate between normal and malignant regions. The experiment was repeated using the same LEDs, and low-cost CCD camera to examine the capability of such a system to discriminate between normal and malignant tissue.

Spectral images obtained by Hyperspectral camera, have been analyzed to reveal the difference of reflectance malignant and normal breast tissue. Superficial spectral reflection image with blue LED (415 nm) showed high variance (10.11). However, a more-depth reflection image with red LED (660 nm) showed low variance (4.44). So the optimum contrast image was produced by combining the three spectral information images from blue, green, and red LED. The COIS using a commercial CCD camera was in agreement with the HS camera.

The novel COIS of the commercial Low-cost CCD Camera is reliable and can be used with endoscopy technique as an assistant tool for surgical doctor to make decision and assess the resection edges in real time during surgery.