The European research project Solus, coordinated by the Politecnico di Milano, has ended, which led to the creation of a innovative multimodal tomographic imaging system for improving breast cancer diagnosis. The system, developed to non-invasively discriminate between malignant and benign lesions, is currently undergoing clinical validation at the San Raffaele Hospital. The validation will last two years, but the Politecnico di Milano explains that the initial results will be available in the next few months. The researchers point out that breast cancer is the most common cancer and early detection is essential to ensure a high chance of survival. Screening programs are effective in reducing mortality but have a high false positive rate. An answer to this now comes from Only – Smart Optical and Ultrasound Diagnostics for Breast Cancer – che combined ultrasound imaging in a single probe (ultrasound and elastography) and diffuse-optic tomography, allowing to simultaneously evaluate the morphology of the tissues, their stiffness, their composition and blood parameters.
The PoliMi explains that the development of the Solus imaging system required significant advancements in the field of photonics (picosecond pulsed lasers, time domain detectors with high sensitivity, dedicated acquisition electronics), leading also to the development of the ‘Smart Optode’, a key element of the multimodal imaging system, but also available as an independent device for time domain diffuse optical spectroscopy, which combines very compact dimensions (a few cm3) with state-of-the-art performance and has potential applications in the medical and non-medical fields: from the monitoring of motor rehabilitation activities or sports training, the non-destructive evaluation of the quality of the fruit in the field or of the timber.
The Horizon 2020 Solus project is coordinated by Professor Paola Taroni of the Physics Department of the Politecnico di Milano, and brings together 9 partners from 5 European countries, with expertise in the field of photonics, electronics and medical imaging: 2 universities (Politecnico di Milano and University College London), 1 research center (Cea-Leti Grenoble), 4 companies (Vermon, Hologic Supersonic Imagine, Micro Photon Devices, iC-Haus), 1 hospital (San Raffaele Hospital) and Eibir-European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research, which connects medical imaging companies across Europe. The whole consortium is grateful to the European Commission and the Photonics21 European Technology Platform, who financed and supported the project, making it possible to develop it.