News From Student Sections

National Capital Section Hosting Dr. Irving Bigio of Boston University

When: Thursday, February 23
Where: Greenbelt , MD
Topic: Elastic scattering spectroscopy for noninvasive detection of cancer

Contact Geary K. Schwemmer at Geary.K.Schwemmer@nasa.gov for more information.

Irving J Bigio, OSA Fellow
Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Physics
Boston University

Optical spectroscopy using fibre-optic probes can be used to perform noninvasive, or minimally-invasive, real-time assessment of tissue pathology in-situ . The most common approach has been based on UV-induced fluorescence spectroscopy, although Raman spectroscopy has also been investigated. These methods are responsive to biomolecular/biochemical changes in cells. On the other hand, the method of elastic-scattering spectroscopy (ESS) is sensitive to the sub-cellular architectural changes, such as nuclear grade or nuclear to cytoplasm ratio, mitochondrial size and density, etc., that correlate with features used in histological assessment. The ESS method senses those morphology changes in a semi-quantitative manner, without actually imaging the microscopic structure.

Clinical demonstrations of ESS have been conducted for organs sites that are endoscope-accessible or directly-accessible. Promising results have been obtained in the areas of breast cancer, esophageal cancer, colon cancer, skin cancer, oral cancer, and other organ sites. Larger-scale clinical studies are now starting.