A portable fluorescence camera for testing surgical specimens in the operating room: description and early evaluation.
OBJECTIVE
Clinical translation of novel optical probes requires testing of human specimens ex vivo to ensure efficacy. However, it may be difficult to remove human tissue from the operating room due to regulatory/privacy issues. Therefore, we designed a portable fluorescence camera to test targeted optical imaging probes on human specimens in the operating room.


METHODS
A compact benchtop fluorescence camera was designed and built in-house. A mouse xenograft model of ovarian cancer with an activatable imaging probe based on rhodamine green was used to test the device. Comparison was made to commercially available imaging systems.


RESULTS
The prototype camera produced images comparable to images acquired with commercially available, non-portable imaging systems.


CONCLUSIONS
We demonstrate the feasibility of a specimen-based portable fluorescence camera for use in the operating room. Its small size ensures that tissue excised from patients can be tested promptly for fluorescence within the operating room environment, thus expediting the testing of novel imaging probes.
Signal Processing and Instrumentation Section, Division of Computational Bioscience, Center of Information Technology, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-5624, USA.
John W
JW
Kakareka
Thomas E
TE
McCann
Nobuyuki
N
Kosaka
Makoto
M
Mitsunaga
Nicole Y
NY
Morgan
Thomas J
TJ
Pohida
Peter L
PL
Choyke
Hisataka
H
Kobayashi
D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D005453:Fluorescence; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D009873:Operating Rooms; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D010781:Photography; D013048:Specimen Handling; D014183:Transplantation, Heterologous