A team of American researchers have created a
portable, miniature microscope in the hope of reducing the time taken to
diagnose oral cancer. Credit: Dr. John X.J. Zhang, Department of Biomedical
Engineering, the University of Texas at Austin.
A team of American researchers have created a
portable, miniature microscope in the hope of reducing the time taken to
diagnose oral cancer.
The
probe, which is around 20 cm long and 1 cm wide at its tip, could be used by
doctors to diagnose oral cancer in real-time or as a surgical guidance tool;
dentists could also use it to screen for early-stage cancer cells.
The
probe has been presented today in IOP Publishing's Journal
of Micromechanics and Microengineering, and has shown good agreement
with images of oral cancers obtained using conventional, much slower techniques
at the University of Texas Health Science Centre at San Antonio, TX.
Historically,
the death rate associated with oral cancer is particularly high; not because it
is hard to discover or diagnose, but due to the cancer being routinely
discovered late in its development.
Lead
author of the study Dr John X J Zhang at the University of Texas at Austin
said: "Today, that statement is still true, as there isn't a comprehensive
programme in the US to opportunistically screen for the disease; without that,
late stage discovery is more common."
The
probe uses a laser to illuminate areas of the sample and can view beneath the
surface of tissue, creating full 3D images. It can also take a series of images
and layer them on top of each other, much like the tiling of a mosaic, giving a
large overall field-of-view.
The key
component of the probe is a micromirror. Micromirrors have previously been used
in barcode scanners and fibre optic switches and are controlled by a microelectromechanical
system, allowing the laser beam to scan an area in a programmed fashion.
The low
cost and ease of fabrication of micromirrors, along with their easy integration
into electronic systems for versatile imaging operations, make them an
indispensable component of the probe.
Oral
cancers have traditionally been diagnosed by biopsy. Based on a doctor's visual
inspection, medical practitioners remove a sample of tissue from the patient
and send it off to a pathologist who will examine the tissue under a microscope
to check for abnormal or malignant cells.
Results
will be sent back to the doctor for the next round of diagnoses or surgery; the
whole process can take up to several weeks. Not only is this process time
consuming, it can be costly, invasive and painful, often leaving scars.
"Due
to the lack of real-time efficient oral cancer screening tools,
it is estimated that approximately $3.2 billion is spent in the United States
each year on treatment of such cancers", Dr Zhang continued.
The
researchers, from the University of Texas at Austin and the commercialization
partner NanoLite Systems, Inc. are now planning clinical trials with a view to
gaining approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They envisage
that, with a few adjustments, the device could be built for a quarter of the
price it costs to build the microscopes that are currently used in diagnosis,
which is around $300 000.
More information: Wang Y et al 2012 J. Micromech. Microeng. 22 065001.http://iopscience. … /22/6/065001
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