Mechanical engineers from the University of Wisconsin are building a handheld microscope to help doctors and dentists distinguish between healthy and cancerous cells. The tool captures details up to a half millimeter beneath the tissue surface, where some types of cancerous cells originate.
"Surgeons do not have a very good way of knowing when they’re done cutting out a tumor,” said senior author Jonathan Liu, UW assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “They’re using their sense of sight, their sense of touch, pre-operative images of the brain — and oftentimes it’s pretty subjective."
The miniature microscope allows surgeons to “see” at a cellular level in the operating room and determine where to stop cutting.
Roughly the size of a pen, the tool uses an innovative approach called “dual-axis confocal microscopy” to illuminate and more clearly see through opaque tissue.
Researchers expect to begin clinical testing of the cancer-screening tool by next year.
