Prostate cancer (PCa) has a high 10-year recurrence rate, making PCa the second leading cause of cancer-specific mortality among men in the USA. PCa recurrences are often predicted by assessing the status of surgical margins (SM) with positive surgical margins (PSM) increasing the chances of biochemical recurrence by 2-4 times. To this end, an SM assessment system using Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) was developed with a microendoscopic probe. This system measures the tissue bioimpedance over a range of frequencies (1 kHz to 1MHz), and computes a Composite Impedance Metric (CIM). CIM can be used to classify tissue as benign or cancerous. The system was used to collect the impedance spectra from excised prostates, which were obtained from men undergoing radical prostatectomy. The data revealed statistically significant (p<0.05) differences in the impedance properties of the benign and tumorous tissues, and between different tissue morphologies. To visualize the results of SM-assessment, a visualization tool using da Vinci stereo laparoscope is being developed. Together with the visualization tool, the EIS-based SM assessment system can be potentially used to intraoperatively classify tissues and display the results on the surgical console with a video feed of the surgical site, thereby augmenting a surgeon’s view of the site and providing a potential solution to the intraoperative SM assessment needs.
Positive surgical margins (PSMs) found following prostate cancer surgery are a significant risk factor for post-operative disease recurrence. Noxious adjuvant radiation and chemical-based therapies are typically offered to men with PSMs. Unfortunately, no real-time intraoperative technology is currently available to guide surgeons to regions of suspicion during the initial prostatectomy where immediate surgical excisions could be used to reduce the chance of PSMs. A microendoscopic electrical impedance sensing probe was developed with the intention of providing real-time feedback regarding margin status to surgeons during robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP) procedures. A radially configured 17-electrode microendoscopic probe was designed, constructed, and initially evaluated through use of gelatin-based phantoms and an ex vivo human prostate specimen. Impedance measurements are recorded at 10 frequencies (10 kHz - 100 kHz) using a high-speed FPGA-based electrical impedance tomography (EIT) system. Tetrapolar impedances are recorded from a number of different electrode configurations strategically chosen to sense tissue in a pre-defined sector underlying the probe face. A circular electrical impedance map (EIM) with several color-coded pie-shaped sectors is created to represent the impedance values of the probed tissue. Gelatin phantom experiments show an obvious distinction in the impedance maps between high and low impedance regions. Similarly, the EIM generated from the ex vivo prostate case shows distinguishing features between cancerous and benign regions. Based on successful development of this probe and these promising initial results, EIMs of additional prostate specimens are being collected to further evaluate this approach for intraoperative surgical margin assessment during RALP procedures.
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