Study: New Imaging Technique Could Make Brain Tumor Removal Safer, More Effective

According to a recent study in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers report that they have developed an imaging technology that could provide neurosurgeons with a color-coded map of a patient’s brain, showing which areas are and are not cancer. First developed in the early 1990s for imaging the retina, optical coherence tomography (OCT) operates on the same echolocation principle used by bats and ultrasound scanners, but it uses light rather than sound waves, yielding a higher-resolution image than does ultrasound. One unique feature of OCT is that, unlike X-ray, CT scans or PET scans, it delivers no ionizing radiation to patients. Taking into consideration that cancers tend to be relatively dense, which affects how they scatter and reflect light waves, the researchers eventually figured out that a second special property of brain cancer cells — that they lack the so-called myelin sheaths that coat healthy brain cells — had a greater effect on the OCT readings than did density. Once they had found the characteristic OCT “signature” of brain cancer, the team devised a computer algorithm to process OCT data and, nearly instantaneously, generate a color-coded map with cancer in red and healthy tissue in green. The team has tested the system on fresh human brain tissue removed during surgeries and in surgeries to remove brain tumors from mice. The researchers hope to begin clinical trials in patients this summer. To learn more about this study, click here.