Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy and second leading cancer-related cause of death in North American men. Despite advances in ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging, there is still a need for imaging techniques which can perform real-time, intra-operative imaging of PCa during diagnostic and treatment procedures. The applicants propose to develop a photoacoustic (PA) imaging system that can be used for in vivo PCa imaging and validate its effectiveness on detecting PCa through patient study. PA imaging utilizes a laser to excite US signal in tissue and a US machine to detect the signal. It has been demonstrated in human breast and small animal imaging where excellent views of blood vessels and tumors have been achieved. PA imaging has never been applied to in vivo PCa imaging on patients due to some technical challenges. The applicants propose a method to overcome those challenges and develop the first in-vivo PA imaging system for clinical study of PCa. The applicants will further use the developed PA imaging system to acquire clinical data on blood vessels and oxygenation from PCa and find their correlation with tumor malignancy and metastasis. This work can have an impact on the treatment of PCa and derive significant health benefits for Canadians.