Cancerous lung tumors may now be more easily identified, thanks to live infrared imaging that makes tumors glow and become visible to the naked eye during surgery.
For the first time, scientists were able to apply this technology with in-human demonstration where tumors were identified during surgery but had no prior knowledge of the location of the tumors.
In their latest study, a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found that near infrared imaging (NIR) can help save lung cancer patients because of its ability to locate tumors. The study, which was supported by NIH grant R01 CA162356, the CHEST Foundation and the Society of Surgical Oncology, discusses its findings in a paper published online in The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.
The Penn Medicine researchers' study involved 50 adenocarcinoma patients aged 25 to 85. The participants underwent surgery and four hours before the procedure, they were given a fluorescent targeted molecular contrast agent. During surgery, the doctors saw cancer cells popping up and visibly glowing in 91 percent of the cases.
The researchers also used another strategy, using indocyanine green as the contrast agent. Eighteen patients between 29 and 78 years old were injected with the FDA-approved dye, 24 hours prior to surgery. Under infrared light, cancerous tumor receptors appear fluorescent neon green, because the permeable property of the dye allows it to bind with the receptors.
During surgery, the doctors placed an infrared camera above the patient's chest, to try to look for fluorescent tumors. They were able to locate 16 out of 18 primary tumors; the doctors then imaged the rest of the lungs and also found an additional five nodules that could not be nakedly seen or felt by a surgeon.
"To our knowledge, NIR imaging has not been used in thoracic surgery to identify pulmonary nodules that have not been diagnosed preoperatively," said Sunil Singhal, assistant professor of Surgery, Penn Medicine's Thoracic Surgery Research Laboratory director and the study's senior author.
The surgery professor pointed out that the use of the NIR technology will better aid in detecting cancer in its earlier stages, where it could still be prevented from spreading more widely to the rest of the body.
There were, however, a few couple of tumors that the NIR imaging technology was not able to detect, because they were buried more deeply than the ones that fluoresced. The researchers also noted that a nodule has to be of a specific size to be seen by NIR.
All the same, they believe that NIR will play a big role in helping save lung cancer patients with its ability to detect more than half the percentage of existing tumors caused by deadly lung cancer.
