Researchers and clinicians at Washington University in St. Louis have found a way to improve the standard of care diagnostic accuracy of potentially cancerous lesions in the ovaries and adnexal regions, or the fallopian tubes, by incorporating functional biomarkers with photoacoustic imaging, a technique that illuminates tissue with near-infrared light at specific wavelengths that are absorbed differently by oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin.
Results of this new additional assessment technology may allow some patients to avoid surgical removal of abnormally appearing lesions, reducing health care costs and potential complications from the procedure.
Quing Zhu, the Edwin H. Murty Professor of Engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering, worked with a team of Washington University School of Medicine physicians, led by Matthew Powell, MD, director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology; and Cary Siegel, MD, a professor of radiology and chief of the gastrointestinal/genitourinary fluoroscopy section in the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, to add photoacoustic imaging to the standard of care for women scheduled to have their ovaries and/or adnexal lesions surgically removed due to potential malignancy. Ian S. Hagemann, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology and Immunology and Obstetrics and Gynecology, was one of the physicians on the research team.