Diagnosis of bladder cancer using multifunctional laser
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluation of the ability of a novel multifunctional laser to detect cancer of the urinary bladder.
IRAS ID
119175
Contact name
Ghulam Nabi
Contact email
Research summary
Bladder cancer is currently the 7th most common cancer in the UK (4th most common in men, affecting over 10,000 people each year. Generally, around 80% of cases are non muscle-invasive (NMIBC), consisting of stages T1 and T2 and frequently presenting with carcinoma in situ (CIS). The current gold standards for detection of bladder cancer are cystoscopy and voided urine cytology. Detection will generally be followed by rigid white light cystoscopy (WLC) to resect the tumour, with tissue biopsy for tumour staging. Flexible cystoscopy based diagnosis and WLC based resection both identify gross tissue morphology to discriminate between healthy and cancerous tissue. As such, these techniques possess considerable specificity for tumour detection but limited sensitivity, particularly with regards to flat lesions and CIS. Similarly, voided urine cytology (VUC) can discriminate strongly between healthy and cancerous cells, but the need for intact cells in staining protocols also makes this technique worryingly insensitive at detecting early lesions and CIS. As CIS is a strong prognostic factor of tumour recurrence and progression, failed detection or incomplete resection of early stage tumours can give rise to many patients requiring repeat treatments or even radical surgery to remove aggressive invasive tumours. Needless to say, this puts considerable burden on the NHS, indeed bladder cancer is one of the most expensive cancers to treat on a per patient basis. It is our intention, therefore, to develop a novel multifunctional laser based system for endoscopy and/or urinalysis. We hope to discover new cancer cell specific optical properties (cartilage structure, nucleation, metabolism imaging) which can be applied to systems to adequately detect tumours, map boundaries for surgery and provide staging information to reinforce clinical tissue biopsy.
REC name
London - Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/1076
Date of REC Opinion
17 Jun 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion