Quantification of tumor fluorescence during intraoperative optical cancer imaging.

Intraoperative optical cancer imaging is an emerging technology in which surgeons employ fluorophores to visualize tumors, identify tumor-positive margins and lymph nodes containing metastases. This study compares instrumentation to measure tumor fluorescence. Three imaging systems (Spectropen, Glomax, Flocam) measured and quantified fluorescent signal-to-background ratios (SBR) in vitro, murine xenografts, tissue phantoms and clinically.

Intraoperative molecular imaging can identify lung adenocarcinomas during pulmonary resection.

Background: More than 80,000 people undergo resection of a pulmonary tumor each year, and the only method to determine if the tumor is malignant is histologic analysis. We propose that a targeted molecular contrast agent could bind lung adenocarcinomas, which could be identified using real-time optical imaging at the time of surgery.

Methods: Fifty patients with a biopsy-proven lung adenocarcinoma were enrolled.