DHAKA: Scientists, including one of Indian-origin, are developing a handheld microscope, roughly the size of a pen, which could allow brain cancer surgeons to "see" at a cellular level in the operating room if tumour cells have been successfully removed.

"Surgeons don't have a very good way of knowing when they're done cutting out a tumour," said senior author Jonathan Liu, assistant professor at University of Washington, reports the business-standard.

"They are using their sense of sight, their sense of touch, pre-operative images of the brain - and oftentimes it is pretty subjective," Liu said.

"Being able to zoom and see at the cellular level during the surgery would really help them to accurately differentiate between tumor and normal tissues and improve patient outcomes," said Liu.

The handheld microscope combines technologies in a novel way to deliver high-quality images at faster speeds than existing devices.

Dentists who find a suspicious-looking lesion in a patient's mouth often wind up cutting it out and sending it to a lab to be biopsied for oral cancer. Most come back benign.

That process subjects patients to an invasive procedure and overburdens pathology labs, researchers said.

A miniature microscope with high enough resolution to detect changes at a cellular level could be used in dental or dermatological clinics to better assess which lesions or moles are normal and which ones need to be biopsied.

BDST: 1124 HRS, JAN 27, 2016
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