David Fowler

C2I2019: Cancer probe promises more effective surgery

In-Depth

Our winner in the Healthcare & Medical category is an advanced radiation device poised to undergo clinical trials for cancer detection. 

Category: Healthcare & Medical

Winner: Laparoscopic molecular probe for prostate cancer surgery

Partners: Lightpoint Medical with National Physical Laboratory

Category Sponsor: Solidworks

In cancer surgery one of the main difficulties for surgeons lies in distinguishing between cancerous and healthy tissue. The risk is twofold: cancer cells can be missed so the patient requires further treatment, or healthy tissue is unnecessarily removed, which can lead to other health consequences and complications.

CHECK OUT ALL OUR C2I2019 COVERAGE HERE

Lightpoint Medical’s Sensei probe aims to address this problem by making it possible to identify cancer cells during laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery in real-time.

Lightpoint, in partnership with the National Physical Laboratory, is seeking to achieve this by using radiopharmaceuticals: radioactive drugs widely used in pre-operative diagnostic imaging of cancers.  “The innovation is in developing novel detectors that can detect these drugs intraoperatively, specifically for laparoscopic surgery, and give live feedback to the surgeon, so they can target the cancerous tissue while sparing healthy tissue,” explained Dr Kunal Vyas, Lightpoint Medical head of research.

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