Engineering design on the front line: Cost, time & life saving advances in cancer surgery

This week I've been at the Engineering Design Show in Coventry and one of the conference talks that really stood out to me was Dr David Tuch's, CEO of Lightpoint Medical. Lightpoint are a medical device company who have developed a groundbreaking surgical imaging technology based on Cerenkov Luminescence Imaging (CLI), allowing cancer to be detected during surgery, reducing the need repeat surgeries.

Dr Tuch was an incredibly engaging speaker and brought the presentation to life, but it's the human benefit that their products offer that is truly inspiring.

To give this piece a little context, allow me to explain the current process for removal of solid tumours. Solid tumours are removed in surgery by visual or tactile assessment by the Surgeon and are taken with a 'margin' of surrounding healthy tissue.

The tumour and surrounding assumed clear margin is then sent to a pathology lab for testing; this process may take a few weeks. A result of negative margin is where the assumed healthy tissue margin around the tumour s exactly that, and a result of positive margin means that the margins are positive for cancerous cells and that the initial surgery has not removed all of the cancer. This means that the patient must have another surgery and in the interim, the remaining cancer may have spread around the body.

So in short, the current process involves a time element that risks the health of the patient and often involves costly re-operation.

The innovative solution that Lightpoint Medical offer, is an intraoperative molecular imaging technology that can identify whether or not margins are positive or negative within the initial operating theatre. This gives the surgeon an immediate answer on margins, without delays, path labs or the need for re-operation.

Cerenkov radiation was first observed over 100 years ago then was characterised by Pavel Cerenkov in 1958 but has only begun to be used in recent years. It's exciting that a different application is being implemented to not only support patients at an individual level, but will also support healthcare providers with a cost-effective means to reduce repeat surgeries and lab costs.

More information about Lightpoint Medical can be found here: http://www.lightpointmedical.com/