Grant: Operating Grant

Newly diagnosed and mortality rates from pituitary tumors and cerebral aneurysms occur at a rate of ~325 (~220 deaths) and ~3,300 (~2,200 deaths) per year, respectively. Combined these central nervous system diseases present a significant health care burden to Canada. This research proposal focuses on the development and feasibility testing of a high-resolution hand-held imaging probe that may be beneficial to guide interventional surgical procedures, such as identifying tumor boundaries during pituitary tumor removal, defining risk factors associated with aneurysm rupture or guide the placement of aneurysm clips used to stop bleeding in the brain. Specifically, we will compare our high-resolution images to that of real pituitary and aneurysm samples to create an atlas of images for use in identifying important disease related features, such as blood vessel wall thickness or the presence of tumor related tissue structures. In addition, pre-clinical animal imaging of both aneurysms and pituitary tumors will be required to test the accuracy of disease detection and to determine clinical utility prior to use in humans. We expect this high-resolution imaging innovation will not only aid in surgical guidance for pituitary and cerebral aneurysm procedures, but the groundwork established by this research may also be extended into additional areas of surgical guidance, including carotid artery imaging for stroke prediction or cancer therapy monitoring.