Study: New photoacoustic imaging hastens tumor imaging, holds potential for breast cancer procedures

Researchers at St. Louis’ Washington University’s School of Medicine have developed a technology which they claim could significantly improve tumor removal procedures, especially breast cancer procedures. A study based on the imaging technique was published this week in the journal Science Advances. The imaging technique, dubbed photoacoustic imaging, will require significantly less time than current techniques, which require a day or more to perform, according to the study. Researchers in the study are hopeful they could bring the timeframe for their scans down to as low as 10 minutes. “Right now, we don’t have a good method to assess margins during breast cancer surgeries,” Dr. Rebecca Aft of the Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine said in prepared remarks. “One day we think we’ll be able to take a specimen straight from the patient, plop it into the machine in the operating room and know in minutes whether we’ve gotten all the tumor out or not. That’s the goal.” Currently, after surgeries specimens are sent to pathologies, who slice, stain and inspect the margins of the tumor for malignant cells to determine whether the entire tumor has been removed. This process can take days, and lead to extra procedures if malignant cells were not excised correctly. Researchers used a phenomenon known as the photoacoustic effect, through which energy detectable by ultrasound technology is absorbed by molecules after be...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Imaging Oncology Research & Development Source Type: news