Descripción del proyecto
Detección precisa del cáncer de tiroides en el punto de atención sanitaria
Los nódulos tiroideos son bultos en la glándula tiroides que suelen ser de origen benigno. Para excluir la posibilidad de un cáncer de tiroides, estos nódulos se evalúan mediante ecografía y biopsia. El proyecto LUCA, financiado con fondos europeos, pretende superar la limitada precisión de los métodos de cribado actuales, que conducen a falsos positivos y cirugías innecesarias. Para ello, el proyecto propone desarrollar un dispositivo de diagnóstico innovador y asequible que proporcione información exhaustiva sobre la morfología, composición y función de los tejidos. Además de mejorar la especificidad, el dispositivo LUCA será fácil de usar en el punto de atención.
Objetivo
This is a trans-disciplinary project that joins endocrinologists (“end-users”), radiologists (“end-users”), physicists who are
experts in medical photonics, engineers who are experts in photonics and ultrasonics and the industry to work towards a
concentrated goal - to produce a novel, point-of-care, low-cost, screening device that combines two photonics systems
(near-infrared diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) and time-resolved spectroscopy (TRS)) with a multi-modal ultrasound
(US) system and a probe that enables multi-modal data acquisition for the screening of thyroid nodules (TN) for thyroid
cancer (TC). TN are a common pathology having a prevalence of palpable nodules around 5% in women and 1% in men,
that increases to 19-76% with the use of neck US. In screening thyroid nodules, to exclude thyroid cancer which occurs in
5-15% of TN, the first step is the US followed by fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) of suspicious nodules. The sensitivity
and specificity of this process in thyroid cancer are limited, with a large number of non-diagnostic and false positive results
that lead to unnecessary surgeries. A reduction in the number of surgeries with a point-of-care diagnostic procedure would
have an important socio-economic impact, diminishing the number of thyroidectomies and the associated comorbidities. This
implies savings of millions of euros per year. Evidence shows that multi-modal approaches that include hemodynamic
information leads to better specificity while each modality on its own fails. We hypothesize that a new optical-ultrasound
probe and integrated system enabled by the development of novel, key enabling photonic components and sub-systems to
provide synergetic information on tissue morphology, composition and function will have a large impact in this field. Our
action is directed by end-users who participate in the proposal and will be exploited by the industrial partners who cover the
whole value-chain.
Ámbito científico
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IA - Innovation actionCoordinador
08860 Castelldefels
España