"Cancer Screening via Biophotonics: A "Remote Sensing" Approach."

Abstract: Contemporary diagnostic medicine frequently relies on invasive procedures, such as endoscopy, to detect disease, which are costly and uncomfortable. This essentially prevents the use of these current options for population screening.  Our objective is to enable truly population-wide screening for major cancers in a non-invasive way by means of a practical technology. We developed a biophotonics technique that senses changes in tissue microarchitecture and composition otherwise undetectable by histopathology. Animal and human studies demonstrated that this technique can detect the field-effect of carcinogenesis through the identification of subtle alterations in histologically normal-appearing tissue due to the presence of precancer in a different part of an organ. This may lead to dramatic advances in cancer screening as it may no longer be necessary to interrogate an organ in order to find precancerous tissue.  As an illustration, this approach may enable an easy population-wide screening for colon cancer through the optical analysis of rectal tissue without colonoscopy, lung cancer through the analysis of oral tissue, and pancreatic cancer through the analysis of duodenal cells.