Project description
Better outcomes for oral cancers thanks to high-tech tumour boundary identification
Complete removal of oral tumours is rare because the tumour boundary is determined by hand and eye, resulting in overly cautious estimations. This often leads to more surgery or tumour therapy and negatively impacts the patient’s prognosis. The Netherlands-based SME SurGuide has developed a novel device based on Raman spectroscopy to discriminate cancerous from healthy tissue in the resected tumour. If a margin of more than five millimetres of healthy tissue is not present (the criteria for adequate tumour resection), additional removal is warranted. The EU-funded MarginGuide project is supporting a technical and business feasibility study that should lead to a successful commercialisation plan.
Objective
SurGuide is a medical device company which aims to improve the results of oral cancer surgery. In the operating room, the surgeon has to rely on his hands and eyes to distinguish tumour from healthy tissue. This is very difficult. In only 15% of the cases, the tumour is removed with an adequate margin. When after surgery, during histopathological assessment, an inadequate margin is detected, the patient will receive adjuvant treatment (i.e. radiotherapy, additional surgery). This often causes lasting additional morbidity, with a negative effect on the quality of life. A fast and reliable methodology is needed to assess tumour removal with adequate margin, during surgery. The MarginGuide is being developed to meet this clinical need. It is a novel tool based on Raman spectroscopy; an optical technology. The MarginGuide consists of a Raman spectroscopic work station, a user-interface, and a fiber-optic probe employing disposable fiber-optic needles. It will be used to rapidly inspect the resection surfaces of the tissue that has been removed by the surgeon and will pinpoint locations where additional tissue should be removed to obtain an adequate margin. A proof-of-concept instrument is currently being tested. SurGuide expects to raise the success rate of oral cancer surgery from the current 15% to over 50%. No other device is able to measure the surgical margin in oral cancer surgery, which gives SurGuide a unique market position and the possibility to gain a dominant market share. Although, this is an ideal starting point, some market barriers still exist. In this project, SurGuide carries out a feasibility assessment covering a business feasibility study and partly a technological feasibility study. The objective of the feasibility assessment is to refine the business plan and the implementation plan for successful commercialization and to optimize the optical technology for the MarginGuide.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
3029 AK ROTTERDAM
Netherlands
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.