OIBTS
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Optical imaging of freshly excised human brain tumour samples
IRAS ID
318706
Contact name
Wenfeng Xia
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Gliomas are the most common type of brain tumor with a grade-dependent prognosis. Glioblastomas(grade 4) have a 5-year survival rate of only 2%. Accurately determining the tumor grade is crucial to optimize patient outcome. However, grading accuracy with stereotactic biopsies is currently limited by inaccurate tumor sampling. During stereotactic brain tumor biopsy, tissue samples are extracted through a needle guided by preoperative stereotactic CT or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, which cannot reliably determine the right target points. In a study of stereotactic biopsy procedures in 300 patients, clinical diagnosis based on preoperative images were different from histological diagnosis in 49% of the cases. The excised tissue samples are then sent to pathology for a rapid smear examination (~30 min) to obtain a preliminary diagnosis while the patient is still in the theatre. If the samples are extracted from non-diagnostic regions (e.g. from healthy brain tissue), additional biopsies are taken. Each biopsy involves a certain risk of intracranial hemorrhage for the patient. Additionally, each session of the smear examination increases the risk of infection and the costs of theatre time and pathology. There is an urgent need for novel intraoperative imaging modalities which can visualize cellular-level pathological changes in real-time to guide tumor biopsies.
This project aims to validate our newly developed highly miniaturised, high-resolution, all-optical photoacoustic and fluorescence imaging probe. This probe is designed to obtain molecular and microstructural information of tissue from within a stereotactic biopsy needle, so that it can be used to guide interventions in the neurosurgical suite.REC name
West of Scotland REC 5
REC reference
22/WS/0185
Date of REC Opinion
9 Jan 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion