Grant: Idea to Innovation

Lung cancer has been the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women. Its five year survival rate is only 15%. One of the major reasons for its poor treatment outcome is the low accuracy of radiation delivery due to constant tumor motion caused by respiration. The solution to this problem is to track the location of the tumour accurately and guide the radiation toward the tumour. We are developing a novel tracking technique that uses markers labeled with positron emission isotopes. These markers can be implanted into the tumour or embedded into surgical instruments to track their 3D location in real-time. Positron emission isotopes produce positrons which will annihilate with a local electron and produce a pair of back-to-back gamma rays. By detecting pairs of annihilation gammas, the positions of the positron emission markers can be determined. Our studies have shown that this technique can be used to track multiple point markers within sub-millimeter accuracy. We call this technique "PeTrack". The positron emission isotopes used by PeTrack have shot life time and their activity is only about 1/100 of the activity used in patient positron emission tomography (PET) imaging so the radiation doses to the patient and operator are minimal, which is an advantage as compared with current x-ray based tracking techniques. The implantation of positron emission markers, whose diameter can be as small as 0.5 mm, will be easier than the implantation of the larger markers used in other techniques. PeTrack can also be applied to real-time tracking of interventional catheter and surgical tools for image guided surgery. We have a pending patent for this technique (U.S. Patent Application No. 11/786,401). The concept of the technique has been tested by simulation and preliminary experiments. The Phase-I research will further evaluate the feasibility of the technique and address the engineering and clinical implementation aspects of the technique to allow further pursuing its commercialization.