The LUCA Device Reveals High Precision in Thyroid Cancer Cells Screening

Thyroid nodules are a usual pathology with 19-76% when screened with ultrasound, more regularly in women. Present medical techniques used to examine this cancer include executing an ultrasound, a Doppler ultrasound, and a biopsy afterward. However, sadly, these techniques provide both low specificity and also low sensitivity. This low effectiveness in accurately diagnosing thyroid lumps causes many dubious or undetected situations and several others that go through unnecessary surgical treatments (false positives) and increase the expense of clinical healthcare, not to mention the reduction of patients’ quality of life.

The EU-funded job Laser and Ultrasound Co-analyzer for Thyroid Nodules (LUCA) began in 2016. Over its five-year course, it developed a brand-new affordable near-infrared optical device incorporated with ultrasound that searched to give medical professionals improved information required to provide better and detailed results in thyroid nodule screening. The objective of such a device was mainly to allow a far better diagnosis of this kind of cancer because up until now, there were no actual means of identifying whether thyroid growth is benign or deadly.

The LUCA gadget is a multi-modal platform combining near-infrared light, time-resolved spectroscopy (TRS), diffuse relationship spectroscopy (DCS), and ultrasound in one single device.

Clinical testing with LUCA

The research study was recently released in Biomedical Optics Express and authored by members of the consortium records on numerous study cases. Clinical tests were carried out to validate the LUCA device’s accuracy and top quality of dimensions.

As a first step, the TRS and DCS modules were tested separately, using phantom tests to confirm both efficiencies under the various European clinical standardization methods. The TRS used a collection of solid phantoms with different absorption and scattering to examine the tool’s ability to identify absorption and spreading changes. In contrast, the DCS used a set of liquid phantoms with different viscosities to evaluate the device’s capacity to measure the motion of the fragments in suspension in the phantom fluid. The examinations executed did confirm to be successful, confirming the superior performances of both modules.

Then, as a 2nd step, the experts executed a series of in vivo characterization examinations on a model healthy and balanced person. By checking the thyroid gland, concurrently with ultrasound imaging, TRS, and DCS, several times a day on different days and different weeks, they were to identify the gauge of the LUCA gadget in determining the hemodynamic parameters connected to the thyroid gland.

Recently, the tool has been relocated into the clinical environment and examined on 18 healthy and balanced volunteers. Also, 47 people were identified with thyroid blemishes and were scheduled for thyroidectomy. The LUCA gadget revealed possible for determining the group of nodules as benign or deadly, which were stated as uncertain cases with the classic ultrasound screening technique. By evaluating the metabolic rate of oxygen usage and overall hemoglobin concentration, the device categorized thirteen benign and four malignant nodules with a level of sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 77%.

Dr. Mireia Mora from the August Pi I Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS) in Barcelona, Spain, which is responsible for the scientific application of the tool, under the supervision of Prof. Ramon Gomis, highlights the reality that “The demand to enhance the existing criteria of thyroid cancer cells diagnosis has driven us to join this multidisciplinary project. We have taken the primary steps in preclinical screening; however, are certain that with this technology, we will certainly avoid unnecessary surgeries, thus boost the lifestyle of our clients”.

Dr. Turgut Durduran, the coordinator of the LUCA task, group leader at ICFO of the Medical Optics study group, commented that “this job has permitted us to develop a distinct optical-ultrasound system that we are positive that will certainly find a use in the clinical thyroid cancer screening.” Current developments in diffuse optical techniques have revealed that these methods have remarkable capacity in this area. However, the methods are helpful in various other regions, such as breast, head, neck cancer, stomach cancer screening and treatment monitoring, cerebrovascular accidents (ictus), and even for COVID19, to name a few.

” We have learned a lot and fear to proceed to work in this line of research because our company believes that this method could considerably enhance the quality of dimensions, limit diagnosis and also determine feasible treatments of individuals,” claimed Dr. Turgut Durduran.

Scattered optics to improve medical diagnosis and therapy

Near-infrared diffuse optical spectroscopy is an optical method that gives considerable complementary information to other clinical strategies used for imaging, such as ultrasounds. The LUCA tool includes two different diffuse optical spectroscopy technologies (TRS and DCS) to enhance the testing of thyroid nodules for cancer cells. These strategies turn it into an utterly novel gadget since it is non-invasive and secure to utilize, mobile, inexpensive; it probes deep enough into the cells (> 1cm deep) to provide essential details regarding the surrounding tissue, in this case, the thyroid and gives a real-time monitoring evaluation together with the ultrasound equivalent.

The TRS and DCS modules contain custom-made components, such as laser heads and off-the-shelf electronic devices for detectors and acquisition electronics, making them more affordable than any commercially offered TRS and DCS devices.

Despite being affordable, the custom-developed parts improve performance features allowing the LUCA device to obtain top-notch measurements of the tissue’s hemodynamics (blood flow and oxygen at the microvascular degree), chemical constitution (water and lipids concentration), as well as anatomy.

Originally published by the European Society of Radiology. Read the original article.

Source: ICFO-The Institute of Photonic Sciences