Laparoscopic contrast enhanced ultrasound for cancer detection

腹腔镜超声造影用于癌症检测

• 批准号: 2886076
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Glasgow
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2886076
• 关键词: Laparoscopic; contrast; enhanced; ultrasound; cancer

Pancreatic cancer is the tenth most common cancer in the UK, with an incidence that has increased by 30% over the last 40 years but persistently low 5-year survival of approximately 8% that has not improved over the same time period. Currently only around 10% of patients are suited to surgery. Earlier detection of disease could play a significant role in patient outcomes by increasing the number of patients whose cancer remains suited to surgical resection. Those patients whose tumour is not accessible or too advanced for surgery are reliant on chemotherapy or immune-therapy treatments. However, pancreatic ductal carcinoma is characterised by the evolution of a dense fibrotic stroma and collagen-rich extra-cellular matrix that can severely limit the penetration of drugs available to treat it. This has led to considerable interest in the development of therapeutics that can target this dense stroma to enable treatment. Our group is working on developing tools that can allow better imaging of stroma to support earlier diagnosis and minimally invasive treatments. This has focussed on new contrast agents to improve imaging sensitivity, but the full potential of these new imaging enhancement and functionality can only be effectively realised with the advent of new ultrasound hardware and transducers to exploit them. New ultrasound transducers that can access tissues endo- or laparoscopically to deliver imaging more sensitive to the detection of microscale tissue alterations in cancer are urgently required to improve patient outcomes. Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is an emerging biomedical imaging modality based on laser-generated US. Compared to conventional US, PA imaging is capable of providing functional information of soft tissue for treatment monitoring and tumor detection. The US/PA dual-modality imaging has been studied and employed for PA microscopy. In recent years, such dual-modality imaging has been implemented with miniature transducers and catheters for intravascular and endoscopic applications in terms of catheter design, transducer configuration, and extended functions. The topic of laparoscopic PA imaging device development is further new, in which only a few prototype designs have been reported. There remains considerable opportunity to further enhance the device specifications including size and performance. This project will investigate the development of advanced laparoscopic PA devices using both theoretical and experimental approaches. Realization of such multi-modal imaging will be further supported through collaboration with US4US, who specialize in new product development providing the drive systems that capable of operating our devices to deliver novel ultrasound imaging applications. This project will benefit from association with another FUSE project and the research groups of the academics, including pancreatic cancer experts, involved across each of these. The outcome will be new laparoscopic devices optimised for contrast enhanced imaging of the pancreas to deliver better and earlier detection of disease for treatment and improved patient outcomes.Key Objectives1. To identify the imaging mechanisms, device configuration, and materials for the design of a laparoscopic PA device2. To simulate the US transducers and optical setup to theoretically estimate and aid design of device properties3. To fabricate and characterize US transducers for the proposed laparoscopic PA device4. To evaluate the basic PA imaging performance, say resolution, optical fluence and signal-to-noise ratio, of developed devices via phantoms5. To evaluate the imaging performance of developed devices via ex vivo and in vivo studies.

胰腺癌是英国第十个最常见的癌症，在过去的40年中，发病率增加了30％，但持续的5年生存率约为8％，在同一时期尚未改善。目前，只有大约10％的患者适合手术。通过增加癌症仍然适合手术切除的患者数量，对疾病的早期发现可能在患者的结局中发挥重要作用。那些肿瘤无法进入或无法进行手术的患者依赖化学疗法或免疫治疗疗法。然而，胰腺导管癌的特征是致密的纤维化基质和富含胶原蛋白的细胞外基质的进化，可以严重限制可用于治疗它的药物的渗透。这导致对可以针对这种致密基质的治疗剂的发展产生了极大的兴趣。我们的小组正在开发工具，可以使基质的更好成像支持早期诊断和微创治疗。这集中在新的对比剂上，以提高成像敏感性，但是这些新成像增强和功能的全部潜力只能通过新的超声硬件和传感器的出现来有效地实现。迫切需要新的超声传感器，这些换能器可以从腹腔镜上进行内部或腹腔镜进行成像，以使对癌症中显微镜组织改变的检测更敏感以改善患者结局。光声（PA）成像是基于激光生成的我们的新兴生物医学成像模式。与常规美国相比，PA成像能够提供软组织的功能信息进行治疗监测和肿瘤检测。美国/PA双模式成像已被研究并用于PA显微镜。近年来，这种双重模式成像是通过导管设计，换能器配置和扩展功能的微型传感器和导管进行了微型传感器和导管。腹腔镜PA成像装置开发的主题进一步是新的，其中仅报道了一些原型设计。仍然有很多机会进一步增强设备规格，包括尺寸和性能。该项目将使用理论和实验方法研究高级腹腔镜PA设备的开发。通过与US4US的合作，将进一步支持这种多模式成像的实现，US4US专门从事新产品开发，提供了能够操作我们的设备以提供新颖的超声成像应用程序的驱动系统。该项目将受益于与另一个Fuse项目的关联和包括胰腺癌专家在内的学者研究小组，其中包括胰腺癌专家。结果将是优化的新型腹腔镜设备，以增强胰腺的对比度增强成像，以提供更好和更早的疾病检测以治疗和改善患者的结果。确定用于设计腹腔镜PA设备的成像机制，设备配置和材料2。为了模拟美国传感器和光学设置，以估算设备属性的理论估计和辅助设计3。为提出的腹腔镜PA设备制造和表征US换能器4。为了评估通过Phantoms5的基本PA成像性能，例如分辨率，光通量和信噪比，通过Phantoms5。通过体内和体内研究评估开发设备的成像性能。