Intraoperative detection of residual BCC by Fast Raman
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Accurate assessment of tumour clearance during surgical treatment of basal cell carcinoma by Fast Raman spectroscopy
IRAS ID
242940
Contact name
Ioan Notingher
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the commonest human cancer. Most are treated by a dermatologist or plastic
surgeon cutting them out using local anaesthetic in outpatients with a margin of normal-looking skin. Surgery aims to remove the cancer with the smallest scar possible. It is often difficult to know how much normal skin to remove for some BCCs. A technique called Mohs micrographic surgery is recommended for these “high-risk” BCCs. It is not available across the whole NHS, because it requires specialist surgeons and facilities. Mohs surgery removes successive layers from the skin cancer until the layers are clear of cancer. Each removed layer is checked by a technician and surgeon. This process is slow and costly.
We want to develop a “Fast Raman device” to speed up Mohs surgery. Our device allows surgeons to check each removed skin layer for cancer cells quickly. With NIHR i4i funding we built a fully-automated “Fast Raman device” that can analyze specimens in 30 minutes. We now want to see how well it works in real NHS practice at the Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre where around 500 Mohs operations for BCC are done every year. We will compare the device to standard pathology and see if it gives the same answer when used by different people. This project will give us important information to design and plan a final national study of the device across the whole of the NHS.
Our device will benefit patients by speeding up Mohs surgery. A quicker operation (around 90 mins rather
than 3 hours) is more comfortable for patients. By doing away with costly technicians to process skin samples, our technique will reduce costs to NHS, allowing Mohs surgery to become more widely available, and reducing the postcode lottery that currently exists.REC name
West Midlands - South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/WM/0105
Date of REC Opinion
27 Apr 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion