Quantitative optical spectroscopy and imaging for cancer diagnosis and treatment monitoring

Abstract

During cancer development, progression and therapy, tissues undergo enormous changes in their physiological and morphological properties, including angiogenesis, hypoxia, alterations in cell nuclear size and density, and denaturation. The ability to measure these biomarkers noninvasively has great clinical values in early detection of cancer and treatment evaluation. Quantitative optical spectroscopy and imaging are noninvasive techniques that are highly sensitive to the biochemical alterations in tissue compositions through the interaction between photons and endogenous molecules in tissues. In this talk I will present three optical spectroscopy and imaging tools being developed in the Biophotonics Laboratory at The University of Akron for cancer detection and therapeutic monitoring. The first technique, called VIS-DRS, acquires diffuse reflectance spectra in the visible band and employs a Monte Carlo inverse model to extract the tissue contents and scattering properties. The VIS-DRS are employed for oral and cervical cancer detection, monitoring of thermal ablation of solid tumors and intraoperative imaging of breast tumor margins during breast conserving surgery. The second technique, called FD-NIRS, detects intensity-modulated diffuse reflectance in the near-infrared region, through a side-firing fiber optic sensor. The FD-NIRS is an ideal in vivo tool for longitudinal monitoring of tumor hypoxia and its response to chemo- and radiotherapy. The third tool is a microendoscope system, named SmartME, which integrates VIS-DRS and high resolution fluorescence imaging into a smartphone platform. The SmatME creates an affordable, easy-to-use and globally-connected solution for oral and cervical cancer screening in low-resource settings.