$13.5M Photoacoustic Imaging Project to Improve Lung Cancer Diagnostics

Northeastern University professor Soner Sonmezoglu has been awarded $13 million through the Advanced Research Project Agency for Health to lead a project developing photoacoustic imaging technology for diagnostic lung assessment. The technology is expected to provide earlier diagnosis of lung cancer than previously possible.

Sonmezoglu will lead a multi-institutional team to develop a system that uses a miniature probe the size of a grain of rice and high resolution 3D imagery to recognize early-stage cancer before it grows and spreads.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S., accounting for one in five cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society, but patients whose malignancies are treated before they spread to other parts of the body have a higher five-year survival rate.

Northeastern University professor Soner Sonmezoglu is leading a team that will use photoacoustic imaging techniques to diagnose early-stage lung cancer before it grows and spreads. Courtesy of Northeastern University/Matthew Modoono.

The problem is that current imaging techniques do not have high enough resolution to determine whether tumors in their early stages are malignant or benign without the aid of a biopsy, said Sonmezoglu, principal investigator for the project.

And “biopsies have a lot of complications,” he said. “They can cause the lung to collapse,” among other negative outcomes. “They also put a financial burden on the healthcare system because a biopsy is an expensive procedure,” Sonmezoglu said.

The system being developed at Northeastern will use a disposable probe that is 1.5 millimeters in diameter and a reusable electronic box to gather high-resolution, 3D images that convey functional and structural information about tumors.

“This technology enables us to miniaturize the probe that touches the lung tissues through a bronchoscope,” he said. “It’s more than an order of magnitude smaller than the other probes that exist today.”

The system will use smaller images from cameras at higher speeds and with less thermal effects.

“You can identify really tiny, small features, for example, the vascular map of a tumor and healthy tissue,” Sonmezoglu said. It can also look at oxygen saturation and fibrosis, which is often associated with cancer, he said.

Physicians will then be able to study these features to identify those that indicate whether the tumor is benign or malignant.

The miniaturized optical photoacoustic imaging system being built by Northeastern’s team will employ the use of advanced image reconstruction algorithms.

While lung cancer will be the focus of the proof-of-concept demonstration during the five-year program, Sonmezoglu expects the commercialization of this imaging technology to have broad societal impacts by providing ample opportunities to improve diagnosis, personalized treatment plans, and, eventually, patient outcomes.

Collaborating with Northeastern University are pathologists, surgeons, and engineers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Washington.

“The medical doctors that I reached out to work on lung cancer and are already familiar with using technology with probes and bronchoscopes, and working with MGH and Johns Hopkins, we will have access to many medical doctors whose guidance and input will help in design and faster adoption in the clinical environment,” Sonmezoglu said.

If successful, Sonmezoglu expects the new imaging system to change the landscape of the photoacoustic imaging field by providing real-time and high-contrast 3D images that can help with earlier diagnosis of diseases beyond lung cancer, including prostate, ovarian, and bladder cancers.