IN-situ Thermometry gUidance In phoTomedicine

INTUIT project aims to pioneer the development of photonic-based spectroscopy and thermometry methods, namely Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) and optical sensing with Fibre Bragg Gratings (FBG), into clinical solutions to visualize and differentiate tissue experiencing coagulative necrosis and/or hyperthermia from normal healthy tissue during tumor removal involving thermal ablation.

This technology will improve surgical guidance, minimizing the destruction of surrounding healthy tissue while achieving a complete tumor resection.

Four Work Packages (WPs) will be implemented throughout the Action: WP1 to study endogenous concentrations of optical biomarkers useful to differentiate the ablation margins.

WP2 to develop a tissue phantom to recreate the thermal gradients and optical properties of the main tissue ablation zones (this phantom will be used to calibrate and validate the HSI and FBG systems).

WP3 to conduct observational animal studies and collect data in-situ on animals undergoing oncology treatment with laser ablation; and WP4 in synergy with all WPs above, dedicated to data processing and development of algorithms for margin detection and to guarantee appropriate data collection, processing and storing.

The work plan will bring HSI and FBG technologies to TRL 4 by month 24 of the Action.

The next 6 months, involve work at a non-academic host to advance towards TRL 5, and further plan strategies and partnerships to push the proposed technologies towards commercialization with the ultimate goal of improving veterinary and human healthcare. WP1 and WP2 will be conducted at the Politecnico di Milano under the supervision of Prof.

Saccomandi who has expertise in thermometry. The animal studies from WP3 will be supervised by Dr. Vajdovich (expert in veterinary pathology and oncology) at the University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest. The data processing will be supervised by Dr. Bocklitz from Leibniz-IPHT whos research is dedicated to photonic data life-cycle.