Margin assessment during breast conserving surgery using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Optics
• Surgical Oncology
• Medical Diagnostics

Background:

• Accurate evaluation of resection margins is crucial in breast-conserving surgeries to ensure complete tumor removal.
• Current methods lack real-time capabilities for precise margin assessment during surgery.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the diagnostic accuracy of diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) for real-time margin evaluation in breast-conserving surgery.
• To assess the ability of DRS combined with tissue classification models to differentiate tumorous from healthy breast tissue at the resection margin.

Main Methods:

• Collected diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) data from both ex vivo and in vivo breast tissue.
• Developed and optimized tissue classification models using the collected DRS data.
• Validated the performance of DRS for in vivo tissue discrimination during breast-conserving surgery.

Main Results:

• Achieved a high diagnostic performance with a Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.76.
• Demonstrated excellent sensitivity (96.7%) and specificity (90.6%) for tumorous tissue detection.
• Obtained an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.98, indicating strong model accuracy.

Conclusions:

• Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) is a viable tool for real-time margin assessment in breast-conserving surgeries.
• DRS offers high sensitivity and specificity, aiding surgeons in achieving clear margins.
• The developed classification models, trained on combined ex vivo and in vivo data, show significant potential for clinical application.