Description du projet
Détection précise du cancer de la thyroïde sur le lieu d’intervention
Les nodules thyroïdiens sont des tumeurs dans la glande thyroïde, le plus souvent d’origine bénigne. Pour exclure la possibilité d’un cancer de la thyroïde, ces nodules sont évalués par échographie et biopsie. Le projet LUCA, financé par l’UE, vise à remédier à la précision limitée des méthodes de dépistage existantes, qui donnent lieu à des faux positifs et à des interventions chirurgicales inutiles. À cette fin, le projet propose de mettre au point un dispositif de diagnostic innovant et abordable qui fournit des informations complètes sur la morphologie, la composition et la fonction des tissus. Outre l’amélioration de la spécificité, le dispositif LUCA sera facile à utiliser sur le lieu d’intervention.
Objectif
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.
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IA - Innovation actionCoordinateur
08860 Castelldefels
Espagne