A new imaging system that highlights cancerous tissue makes it easier for surgeons to detect and remove tumours without harming surrounding healthy tissue, according to American researchers.

Currently, cancer surgeons have no clear way to determine in real-time whether they’ve removed all of a cancer patient’s cancerous tissue.

The fluorescence-assisted resection and exploration, or FLARE system, consists of a near-infrared (NIR) imaging system, a video monitor and a computer. It shows particular promise for improving surgery for breast, prostate and lung cancers. In advanced stages, the boundaries of these cancers can be difficult to define. FLARE may also help cancer surgeons avoid cutting important structures such as blood vessels and nerves.

Patients are injected with special dyes (NIR fluorphores) that target specific structures such as cancer cells. When exposed to NIR light, the dyes light up the cancer cells which appear on a video monitor.

Project director Dr. John Frangioni, explained: “This technique is really the first time that cancer surgeons can se structures that are otherwise invisible, providing true image-guided surgery. If we’re able to see cancer, we have a chance of curing it.”

In preliminary trials, the researchers used FLARE to visualise organs and body fluids of mice and map the lymph nodes of pigs, all in real time. The first human clinical trials, which may begin this summer, will involve mapping the lymph nodes f breast cancer patients.

In the future, fluorophores could be developed to highlight nerves and blood vessels in one colour while visualising cancer cells in a different colour, allowing multiple structures to be viewed easily and even simultaneously.

Frangioni continued: “The future of the technology now is really in the chemistry. We have to develop agents for specific tumours, nerves or blood vessels we’re trying to visualise.”