Breast cancer affects more than 2 million women worldwide each year. Radiation therapy or chemotherapy followed by breast-conserving surgery is the first choice of intervention for early-stage breast cancer. This surgery aims to remove the tumor while preserving as much healthy tissue as possible, but accurate tumor mapping during surgery is difficult, so the tumor may not be completely extracted.
Without proper removal, patients face future surgeries, delays in follow-up treatment, and decreased quality of life.
in APL bioengineeringResearchers from the University of Western Australia, the University of Melbourne, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun designed and tested a hand-held device that uses tissue’s mechanical properties to distinguish between tumors and healthy tissue.
Tumors are often harder than benign tissue, and you can feel the difference during surgery.
The technique presented in this paper, stereoscopic optical palpation (SOP), is inspired by clinical palpation, which surgeons routinely use to identify diseased tissue based on their sense of touch. ”
Rhys Jones, author
The handheld probe developed by the researchers is based on photoelastography, a field that combines imaging with mechanical measurements such as elasticity. When compressed, tumor and healthy tissue exhibit different mechanical properties, which can be measured with a probe. The probe also provides visual information of the tissue, giving the user another data point to differentiate between the two tissue types.
“The wireless probe is an extension of the previous benchtop implementation of SOP,” Jones said. “Our process began by establishing the key requirements for the probe through consultation with surgeons. We determined that our goals were an ergonomic handheld format, a field of view of at least 6 mm x 6 mm, wireless operation, a minimum of 1 hour battery life, and low material costs.”
The prototype costs about $1,200 in materials, which is cheaper than a similar benchtop SOP device that costs about $3,000, but the authors believe this could be reduced once it goes into mass production. Ultimately, Jones hopes the device will go beyond tumor removal and be used in vivo during surgery.
“Beyond breast-conserving surgery, we believe this probe can be used in many clinical scenarios where palpation is currently used, such as evaluating skin lesions,” Jones said.
sauce:
American Institute of Physics
Reference magazines:
Jones, R. Others. (2026) Wireless and handheld optical palpation imaging probe for use in breast-conserving surgery. APL Bioengineering. DOI: 10.1063/5.0323681. https://pubs.aip.org/aip/apb/article/10/2/026104/3388738/A-wireless-and-handheld-optical-palpation-imaging
