Improved visualisation of glioma margins

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Improving fluorescence-guided brain tumour surgery with ultra-high sensitivity imaging

  • IRAS ID

    255263

  • Contact name

    Puneet Plaha

  • Contact email

    puneet.plaha@ouh.nhs.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    Clinical Trials and Research Governance

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    1 years, 0 months, 1 days

  • Research summary

    Research Summary:
    Diffuse glioma is a group of brain cancers. Patient life expectancy is improved by taking out, through neurosurgery, as much of the tumour as possible from the brain without causing permanent neurological symptoms. It can be difficult to distinguish normal brain from tumour during surgery, which may affect the ability of the operating surgeon to achieve the best possible result for the patient. Surgeons have started to use fluorescent dye to try to address this problem, but this is not always effective. We propose to test an existing technology, military-grade night vision, to see if we can improve the ability of the surgeon to see tumour cells at the end of the operation.\nWe propose to study this in patients undergoing removal of diffuse glioma. We do not propose to alter the aims of the surgery, but simply test how good this technology is at detecting fluorescent tumour cells. This will take place in Oxford. Participation will be purely at the time of surgery - pre and post-operative treatment will be the same as for patients not taking part in the trial.

    Summary of Results:
    The study was terminated prematurely after recruiting 4 of 20 participants. Comparison of intra-operative images of the tumour resection bed taken by the night vision and standard in-built microscope cameras revealed significantly different focal points, which could not be corrected with lens attachments. Since this technical error precluded comparative analysis of the images, it was not possible to evaluate the sensitivity of the night vision camera technique in this study.

  • REC name

    South Central - Oxford B Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    19/SC/0560

  • Date of REC Opinion

    18 Dec 2019

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion