Intraoperative Real Time Diagnosis of Human Brain Tumours
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Intraoperative Raman Spectroscopy for Immediate Human Brain Tumour Diagnosis and Detection of Tumour Margin
IRAS ID
137451
Contact name
Babar Vaqas
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust/Imperial College London
Research summary
Accurate, timely diagnosis of a brain tumour is essential for determining best treatment to improve survival as some tumours respond better to surgical excision, radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Currently, at the time of surgery the surgeon often has to decide how aggressively to remove the tumour based on incomplete information as it takes up to 10 days for modern tissue processing methods to give an accurate diagnosis. When removing brain tumours it is also crucial but difficult to distinguish tumour from normal brain tissue as sometimes the colour and texture differences are minimal, leading to possible disability if the surgeon is too aggressive. This study seeks to apply new optical technology which can instantly diagnose the nature of tissue being removed thus guiding tumour resection margins during surgery itself. The technology does not require contact with human tissue and works in seconds. This has the possibility to revolutionising brain tumour surgery by enabling improved diagnosis speeds, better tumour excision with minimal damage to normal brain. The technology can also be combined with other advanced methods such as ultrasound to improve tumour resection and survival. It can also be used to investigate tumour biology in the living brain to identify targets for future therapy such as altered tumour metabolism which is hard to study when samples are removed from the brain and the tissue is dead. A pilot study will first be conducted with data collected being validated by routine histopathology which is the current gold standard. This includes the use of routine biomarkers such as IDH-1 mutation and MGMT analysis of tumour samples to assess aggressiveness of tumours.
The results of this study will be compared with iKnife spectral data being obtained on the same patients to cross validate Raman and Mass Spectral technologies for brain tumour diagnosis.REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Sheffield Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/YH/0047
Date of REC Opinion
10 Apr 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion