Researchers develop unique technology for most effective bone cancer treatment

Of the many ways to treat cancer, the oldest and perhaps most proven is surgery. Even with the advent of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and more experimental treatments such as bacteria that seek out and destroy cancer cells, very often the cancer simply must be cut out of the patient's body.

The goal is to remove all cancerous tissue while preserving as much surrounding healthy material as possible. But because it can be difficult to draw a clear line between cancerous and healthy tissue, surgeons often remove healthy tissue to make sure they have removed all cancerous tissue.

This is especially problematic when the patient suffers from cancer affecting the bones. They present a unique challenge during surgery because of their hardness compared to other tissues and because they grow much slower than other types of tissue.

A new diagnostic imaging technology developed by Caltech researchers gives surgeons the ability to make incisions 10 times more accurately, allowing them to preserve 1,000 times more healthy tissue and making it easier for patients to recover.

The new imaging technology, called ultraviolet photoacoustic microscopy with real-time three-dimensional contour scanning, or UV-PAM, is intended to replace the traditional method of detecting cancerous bone tissue. Because the process takes only a few minutes, it gives the surgeon the ability to distinguish healthy bone from cancerous bone during surgery.

UV-PAM uses ultraviolet wavelengths of laser radiation tuned to make DNA and RNA molecules vibrate. Because cancer cells have a different structure and contain much more DNA than healthy cells, a section of cancerous tissue absorbs more ultraviolet light and therefore gives a stronger ultrasound signal than healthy tissue, allowing the surgeon to clearly identify areas of bone that need to be removed.

A paper describing UV-PAM is published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

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