Not knowing whether all cancer cells have been successfully excised from a patient during surgery is a problem cancer surgeons have recognized for many years. Frozen sectioning remains to be a key procedure for intraoperative surgical margin assessment. Such a procedure requires the tissue specimen to be processed and labeled which has a negative impact on the tissue properties, thus significantly reducing the quality of the histological images. It is no secret that images of a lower quality make it more difficult for pathologists to give an accurate diagnosis.

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In one out of five cases, there is a discrepancy between the intraoperative testing results and the post pathological histopathology. If traces of cancer are found at the surgical margin, patients have to undergo a re-excision surgery. 
 

Re-excision surgeries is not a sustainable practice since it increases the burden of the healthcare system. Hospitals have already spent tons of clinical resources to tackle this issue, and the problem is likely to grow since the number of estimated cancer surgery procedures will increase by 5 million in 2040 [1]. Pathologists and surgeons genuinely need a solution that can generate high-resolution images rapidly during surgery and provide them with accurate information on the cancer margin.
 

PhoMedics brings them a solution that challenges the status quo, providing intraoperative pathological information without the need for any tissue processing or labeling. The potent combination of hardware and software can give medical doctors precisely the information that they need, whenever they need it. The images on the right show how our CHAMP images can visualize metastasized cancer in just three minutes.