Patent ID: 9020581
Filing Date: 2015-04-28
Classification: A61B

Abstract:
1. A method for surgical margin evaluation of tissues at a surgical site of interest, comprising the steps of: (a) illuminating the surgical site at at least one first spot with light, by a probe; (b) collecting Raman scattering light from the surgical site at a plurality of second spots, respectively, in response to illumination by the light, by the probe, wherein each second spot is apart from the at least one first spot so as to define a source-detection (S-D) offset distance between the at least one first spot illuminated with the light and said second spot from which the Raman scattering light is collected, wherein the plurality of second spots is located such that the S-D offset distance between the at least one first spot and a j-th second spot is j×d (c) obtaining the plurality of spatially offset Raman spectra from the collected Raman scattering light, by a detector coupled with the probe, wherein each spatially offset Raman spectrum is corresponding to a respective second spot of the surgical site, and associated with a depth of the tissues at which the Raman light is scattered; (d) acquiring a Raman spectrum from the at least one first spot illuminated with the light; (e) identifying tissue signatures from the plurality of spatially offset Raman spectra; and (f) determining surgical margin status of the surgical site from the identified tissue signatures, wherein the identifying step comprises the step of comparing each of the Raman spectrum acquired from the at least one first spot and the plurality of spatially offset Raman spectra with a standard Raman spectrum of tumor tissues so as to determine a tumor signature of the corresponding Raman spectrum; and wherein the comparing step comprises the steps of: (A) identifying spectral peaks of one of the plurality of spatially offset Raman spectra at a corresponding S-D offset distance between the at least one first spot and a second spot from which the one of the plurality of spatially offset Raman scattering light is collected; (B) calculating the tumor signature, {T(i)}, for each identified peak of the one of the plurality of spatially offset Raman spectra at the corresponding S-D offset distance: (C) averaging the tumor signature {T(i)} for the N spectral peaks of the one of the plurality of spatially offset Raman spectra to obtain an overall relative tumor contribution in the one of the plurality of spatially offset Raman spectra; and (D) repeating steps (A)-(C) for the rest of the plurality of spatially offset Raman spectra.