An integrated spectroscopy-ultrasound surgical navigation system for residual cancer detection in breast surgery.

乳腺癌影响八分之一的妇女在其生命中，是女性癌症相关死亡的第二大原因。理想的治疗方法是在早期进行保乳手术，在切除癌症的同时保留健康组织。 不幸的是，目前的切除方法具有高达近40%的高阳性边缘率（当在切除标本的边缘发现癌细胞时）。阳性边缘与高复发概率相关，因此需要重复 手术平均而言，每三名接受保乳手术的妇女中就有一名由于边缘阳性而需要至少一次额外的手术。重复手术导致术后并发症的风险增加，美容受损，放射治疗延迟，心理困扰增加，以及费用和风险增加。 第二次全身麻醉重复手术往往导致全乳房切除术，这是一个创伤的经验，病人谁期望治愈治疗与乳房保护。通过开发独特的手术导航系统， 将术中超声成像与声学光谱技术相结合，我们打算在患者离开手术台之前确保切除腔没有癌症。我们利用传统的超声波 扫描仪，同时建立一个独特的光谱超声探头，从而产生的系统将负担得起，并提供给加拿大的所有护理设施。拟议的系统应能够显著降低阳性边缘率，从而减少重复手术的数量，并为患者带来显著的生活质量益处，并显著降低医疗保健成本。

Breast cancer affects 1 in 8 women during their lives and is the second-leading cause of female cancer related deaths. The ideal treatment is breast-conservation surgery , during its early stage, to remove cancer while conserving healthy tissue. Unfortunately, the current resection methods have high positive margin rates (when cancer cells are found on the edge of the resected specimen) of up to nearly 40%. Positive margins are linked to high probability of recurrence and thus require repeat surgery. On average, one out of every three women undergoing breast-conservation surgery needs at least one additional surgery due to positive margins. Repeat surgery leads to increased risk of postoperative complications, impaired cosmetics, delayed radiation therapy, increased psychological distress, and increased costs and risks of a second general anesthesia. Repeat surgery often leads to full mastectomy, which is a traumatic experience for a patient who expected a curative treatment with breastconservation. Through development of a unique surgical navigation system that integrates intra-operative ultrasound imaging with an acoustic spectroscopy technique, we intend to ensure that the resection cavity is clear of cancer before releasing the patient from the operating table. We take advantage of conventional ultrasound scanners, while building a unique spectroscopic-ultrasound probe, and thus the resulting system will be affordable and accessible to all care facilities in Canada. The proposed system should enable significant reduction in positive margin rates, thereby reducing the number of repeat surgeries, and yielding significant quality of life benefits to patients and a significant reduction in health care costs.