Fig. 1: Proposed surgical workflow.
From: A Raman topography imaging method toward assisting surgical tumor resection
If a breast cancer lumpectomy is resected with unfavorable positive margins, traces of malignant tissue are likely on the specimen’s surface. Detecting and locating its presence while the patient is still in the OR could rapidly inform the surgical team where additional tissue should be removed to achieve a more complete excision. SERS NPs consisting of different reporter molecules and chemically conjugated with biomarker protein-targeting moieties can serve as multiplexed spectral imaging contrast agents. A freshly excised specimen could be incubated with a cocktail of such NPs, rinsed with fresh buffer to wash away unbound material, and topographically imaged. The resulting spectral and spatial information could be rendered in such a way to inform a surgical team whether any positive margins exist and where to remove additional tissue from the surgical cavity.
