Visualizing secrets of glioma
Image courtesy of Frederic Leblond and Kevin Petrecca.
3D brain rendering showing the MRI-detected tumour volume (blue) and points (red) where Raman spectroscopy detected cancer cells invading normal brain beyond MRI enhancement.
Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, March 10, 2015
Gliomas are inherently invasive, and accurate delineation of the diffuse boundary between tumour and normal brain tissues is not possible with current intraoperative imaging techniques, contributing to a local recurrence rate for high-grade gliomas of ∼85%.
A new approach developed by Frederic Leblond, Kevin Petrecca and colleagues offers improved definition of cancer and normal tissues during surgery. The Raman spectroscopy modality distinguishes tissues based on their different molecular characteristics, which result in variable inelastic scattering of incident laser light and thus distinct spectral profiles. “This handheld Raman spectroscopy probe technique, coupled with our machine-learning tissue-classification algorithms, can detect brain cancer and, most importantly, invasive cancer cells on a background of normal brain, at cellular resolution,” says Leblond.