Multidimensional endoscopy for early cancer detection

在英国，每年有超过55000名患者被诊断为食道癌或肺癌；惊人的44000人将死于这种疾病。大多数患者目前被诊断为疾病晚期(区域性或远距离扩散)，5年内存活率不到10%。因此，临床上尚未满足的一个关键需求仍然是疾病的早期诊断。为了及早发现这些癌症，高危患者可能会接受内窥镜检查。内窥镜是一种细长的软管，一端有光源和摄像机，用于传递来自体内的图像。它们复制了我们的眼睛所能看到的东西，如果我们能够看到体内的话。内窥镜检查对癌症的监测和诊断至关重要，然而，许多食道癌和肺癌一开始都是微小的异常，使用传统的内窥镜很难发现。这项研究的重点是通过设计一种专门的摄像机来增强内窥镜医生的视力，这种摄像机可以检测我们眼睛看不见的光的特性。我们还将在台式系统中使用这种新相机，该系统可以非常快速地分析从体内取出的组织(活组织检查)，然后将其发送给病理学家检查癌症。我们的新相机设计具有成本效益，并提供额外的信息，以帮助医生诊断食道癌和肺癌，并最终可能取代目前的护理标准。

Each year in the UK, over 55,000 patients will be diagnosed with oesophageal or lung cancer; a staggering 44,000 will die from their disease. The majority of patients are currently diagnosed when their disease is at a late stage (with regional or distant spread), yielding less than 10% survival over 5 years. Therefore, a key clinical unmet need remains for early disease diagnosis. To detect these cancers early, patients that are at a high risk of disease might undergo endoscopy. An endoscope is a long, thin, flexible tube with a light source and video camera at one end to relay images from inside the body. They replicate what our eye could see if we were able to look inside the body. Endoscopy is vital for surveillance and diagnosis of cancer, however, many cancers of the oesophagus (food pipe) and lung start out as small abnormalities that are hard to spot using conventional endoscopes.The focus of this research is to augment the vision of the endoscopist by designing a specialist video camera that detects the properties of light that our eyes are blind to. We will also use this new camera in a benchtop system that can analyse tissue that has been taken out of the body (biopsied) very quickly, before it is sent to a pathologist to check for cancer. Our new cameras are designed to be cost effective and provide extra information to help doctors with diagnosing cancer in the oesophagus and lung, and could ultimately replace the current standard-of-care.