Invention:
This innovation is a new method that uses angular differences in conjunction with an endoscope to identify cancerous or pre-cancerous colon tissue. Existing methods require a reference measurement ('normal') in every patient compared to a cancer-suspicious measurement. Instead, this method and endoscope provide for angle-resolved second harmonic generation (SHG) measurements associated with forward and backward scattered light that eliminate the need to obtain paired normal and cancer-suspicious measurements in each patient.
Background:
Globally, colorectal cancer was the second leading cause of cancer death in 2021. Research suggests that collagen, a major structural protein, plays a pivotal role in cancer development and metastasis, and by extension patient prognosis. Collagen surrounding tumor cells undergoes structural changes that can be quantitatively studied with second harmonic generation (SHG), a subset of multiphoton microscopy (MPM). MPM as an imaging modality is difficult to implement in an endoscope because of the complex and expensive miniaturized scanning components required. Endoscope complexity can be greatly reduced by implementing a simpler, non-synchronized scanning mechanism.
Applications:
- Cancer diagnosis
- Semi-infinite tissue cancer diagnosis
Advantages:
- Less imaging required
- Two simultaneous measurements taken
- Reliable
- Quantitative diagnosis
