Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

Gliomas constitute 80% of all malignant brain tumors and are one of the most fatal of all cancers. For example, the most aggressive form (glioblastoma) is associated with a mean survival of only 14 months. The standard treatment for brain cancer involves surgical tissue resection where the clinical objective is to remove a tumor volume as large as possible to improve survival while minimizing healthy tissue damage to limit the risk of complications (loss of cognitive and motor functions). This is challenging because gliomas are diffusely invasive cancers leading to local cancer cell infiltrations into the normal brain that cannot be detected either visually during surgery or pre-operatively using standard-of-care technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging. Our objective is to improve neurosurgical oncology by developing a complementary guidance technique seamlessly integrated into the surgeon's workflow for the detection and safe removal of cancer-infiltrated tissue. The technological innovation will be in the form of a hand-held, label-free Raman spectroscopy and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy contact imaging probe providing molecular, functional and structural tissue information. A pilot clinical study in 20 patients undergoing brain cancer surgery will be conducted to evaluate the accuracy the new technique to detect cancer invasions.