University of Illinois researchers are trying to revolutionize cancer surgery with virtual reality goggles that can detect cancerous tissues using infrared neon light.
The technology was developed in the university’s biosensors lab by electrical engineering professor Viktor Gruev and research scientist Zhongmin Zhu. It’s the same laboratory that developed mine-sweeping underwater drones and other cancer-detecting cameras.
“We’ve been working for a while in developing imaging technology that can be used during cancer surgeries,” Gruev said. “If you’re using special tumor targeted dyes that are highlighting the organs you want to see during surgery, tumors, lymph nodes, you can see them with these goggles.”
While wearing the goggles and shining a handheld laser on cancerous tissue, those tumors and lymph nodes begin to glow for the person wearing the goggles. To the naked eye, the fluorescence goes unseen.
Viktor Gruev
Professor
Electrical & Computer Engineering
“We are creating an enhanced vision or superhuman vision for the surgeon,” Zhu said.
The goggles have been used in clinical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, in Macedonia, and most recently Nigeria, where Gruev said 200 breast cancer surgeries were completed with the technology.
Gruev said the results have not been finalized yet, but Zhu said the goggles have cut down surgery time and helped doctors locate cancerous tissues which may have gone overlooked.
“We’ve never been able to get so many CSEs, clinically significant events, in such a short time frame for a new device,” he said.
A Belgian doctor who used the technology during surgeries in Nigeria said there’s still a lot more research to be done on the topic. He added he’d like to see the efficacy of the surgery before starting to switch from his current method of breast cancer surgery.
“In Nigeria it worked definitely, but there definitely should be some improvements to have a better view,” said Dr. Henk Loobuyck.
Still, since the goggles are smaller and cheaper than most modern surgical equipment, Loobuyck said the tool could prove to be immensely valuable in developing countries.
“In Africa, if you don’t have these techniques it could be a valuable alternative,” he said.
This story was originally written by WCIA’s Peter Hanson and can be found here.
Viktor Gruev is a Dunning Endowed Faculty Scholar and Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. He co-leads the CCIL’s Cancer Technology and Data Science Research Program, and he has affiliations with the Department of Bioengineering, the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.