Development of fibre-optic Raman probes for in vivo diagnosis of upper gastrointestinal cancers

摘要

Cancers of the stomach and oesophagus pose major global public health challenges. In order to improve outcomes for patients with these cancers, early detection and treatment of pre-cancerous lesions is essential. However, currently up to 50% of oesophageal and gastric dysplasia (pre-cancer) is macroscopically invisible and so cannot be detected by clinicians during endoscopy. As a result, upper gastrointestinal (Gl) cancers are often detected at a late stage by which time they are incurable. Urgent action is required to develop a clinical test that could allow real-time in vivo diagnosis of pre-cancerous dysplasia eliminating the need for biopsy and enabling immediate endoscopic therapy to be targeted at the pre-cancerous lesion resulting in improved prognosis.