A smart fiber optic sensor for in vivo tissue optical spectroscopy

描述（由申请人提供）：癌症，如口腔癌和宫颈癌，是一个日益严重的全球健康问题，不成比例地影响发展中国家。每年，全世界诊断出超过481，000例新的口腔癌病例，5年死亡率约为50%，其中近三分之二发生在发展中国家。宫颈癌是妇女中第二常见的癌症，发病率和死亡率分别为每100 000名妇女16人和9人，80%的病例发生在发展中国家。发展中国家的高死亡率很大程度上是由于这些国家没有适当的基础设施和资源来支持在美国可用的有组织的筛查和诊断计划。上皮组织的光吸收和散射特性反映了其潜在的生理和形态特性。光谱学，特别是漫反射光谱学，可用于非侵入性地量化这些组织特性，并已显示出我们小组以及其他人对宫颈和口腔早期癌前病变诊断的希望。本提案的长期目标是开发一种便携式、易于使用、成本低、但准确可靠的光学设备，该设备可以帮助在早期阶段筛查和诊断口腔癌和宫颈癌，并且非常适合在低资源环境中使用。该研究的目的是开发一种便携式，低功耗，智能光纤传感器，并建立其性能指标的组织模仿幻影和健康的口腔组织。这些目标将通过使用最先进的光子组件来实现，例如LED和USB光谱仪以及创新的智能光纤探头。智能探头将集成到单个光纤探头中，用于组织光谱学的样品通道，用于实时仪器校准的自校准通道，以及用于控制探头与组织界面处的探头压力的干涉压力传感器。本论文的主要工作是：（1）设计和构建了用于活体上皮组织可见漫反射光谱测量的智能传感器系统，（2）验证了该传感器系统在组织模型光学特性提取和压力测试箱压力测量中的准确性;以及（3）评估探针压力对测量的组织参数的影响以及在健康志愿者中使用智能传感器可以控制探针压力的程度。成功完成这项研究的目标将导致一个紧凑的智能光纤传感器系统，这将被证明是获得准确的，可重复的和定量测量的组织吸收和散射对比度与应用到全球健康筛查宫颈癌和口腔癌。未来的研究工作将集中在部署这项技术，在资源贫乏的环境中测试早期筛查策略。与PI合作的Ramanujam博士获得了杜克全球健康基金，用于对海地疑似宫颈癌患者进行光谱学研究。 公共卫生相关性：该R 03提案的目标是开发一种便携式、低功耗和低成本的智能光纤传感器设备，可用于获得完整组织的吸收和散射对比度的准确、可重复和定量测量，并应用于宫颈癌和口腔癌的全球健康筛查。拟议的研究与公共卫生密切相关，因为它可能有助于改善口腔癌和宫颈癌的筛查，从而降低全球死亡率。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cancer, such as oral and cervical cancer, is a growing global health problem that disproportionately impacts the developing world. Each year, over 481,000 new cases of oral cancer are diagnosed worldwide, with a 5- year mortality of ~50% and nearly two-thirds of which occurs in developing world. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women with an incidence and death rate of 16 and 9 per 100,000 women, respectively, and 80% of cases occur in the developing world. The high death rate in developing countries is largely due to the fact that these countries do not have the appropriate infrastructure and resources to support the organized screening and diagnostic programs that are available in the U.S. The optical absorption and scattering properties of epithelial tissues reflect their underlying physiological and morphological properties. Optical spectroscopy, particularly diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, can be used to noninvasively quantify these tissue properties and has shown promise for diagnosis of early precancerous changes in the cervix and oral cavity by our group as well as others. The long term objective of this proposal is to develop a portable, easy-to-use and low cost, yet accurate and reliable optical device that can aid in the screening and diagnosis of oral and cervical cancer at an early stage and that is well suited for use in a low-resource setting. The objective of the proposed research is to develop a portable, low-power consumption, smart fiber-optic sensor and to establish its performance metrics on tissue-mimicking phantoms and healthy oral tissues. The goals will be achieved by the use of state-of-the-art photonics components, such as LEDs and USB spectrometers, and an innovative smart fiber-optic probe. The smart probe will integrate into a single fiber-optic probe a sample channel for tissue optical spectroscopy, a self-calibration channel for real-time instrument calibration, and an interferometric pressure sensor for the control of the probe pressure at the probe-to-tissue interface. The specific aims of the proposed work are: (1) design and construction of the smart sensor system for performing visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy of epithelial tissues in vivo; (2) verification of the accuracy of the smart sensor system in extraction of optical properties on tissue phantoms and in measuring pressure in a pressure test chamber; and (3) an evaluation of the effects of probe pressure on the measured tissue parameters and how well the probe pressure can be controlled with the smart sensor in healthy volunteers. Successful completion of the objectives of this research will result in a compact smart fiber-optic sensor system which will be demonstrated to obtain accurate, reproducible and quantitative measurements of tissue absorption and scattering contrast with applications to global health screening of cervical and oral cancers. Future research efforts will focus on deploying this technology for testing early screening strategies in resource poor environments. Dr. Ramanujam with whom the PI collaborates has a Duke Global health grant to initiate optical spectroscopy studies on patients suspected to have cervical cancer in Haiti. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The goal of this R03 proposal is to develop a portable, low power-consumption, and low-cost smart fiber-optic sensor device that can be used to obtain accurate, reproducible and quantitative measurements of absorption and scattering contrast of intact tissues with applications to global health screening of cervical and oral cancers. The proposed research is significantly relevant to public health due to the potential to contribute to the improvement of screening oral and cervical cancer, and thus the reduction of mortality rate worldwide.