Terahertz Breast Imaging May Decrease Repeat Surgical Procedures

This technology has the potential to eliminate the need for multiple surgeries and tissue samples to get clear surgical margins. The researchers published their study in the May 2006 issue of the journal Radiology.

"We found that terahertz light could reliably distinguish between normal breast tissue, tumor and even early-stage in situ cancers in excised tissue samples,” said Vincent P. Wallace, Ph.D., lead investigator at TeraView (Toronto; Canada), who worked with Addenbrooke's Hospital (Cambridge, UK), in performing the study.

At present, excised tissue samples must be sent for histopathologic examination, which characteristically takes several days. Therefore, surgeons cannot determine if all the tumor has been removed until quite a while after the surgical procedure has been completed, and frequently, repeat surgeries have to then be planned. For the first time, however, terahertz imaging has the potential to eliminate the need for additional procedures by allowing the surgeon to evaluate tissue samples during the first excision procedure.

Terahertz light is situated between the infrared and microwave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The investigators discovered that by placing a slice of excised breast tissue on a special quartz plate and exposing it to terahertz light, the light waves reflected from the tissue contained unique information about its characteristics. The researchers were able to differentiate both invasive and noninvasive breast carcinomas from normal tissue.

Twenty-two excised breast tissue samples were obtained from 22 women who underwent either wide local excision or mastectomy to remove breast cancer. All samples were first sliced and imaged with terahertz light, and then submitted for histopathologic analysis. Imaging took less than five minutes.

In breast cancer excision surgery, the goal is to remove the complete tumor with an adequate margin of normal tissue, while minimizing the amount of healthy tissue being removed. If a histopathologist analyzes the tissue and finds tumor at or near the edges, this indicates that there is a higher chance of cancer recurrence.



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TeraView
Addenbrooke's Hospital