Radical resection of cancerous tissue during surgery is critical to reduce tumour recurrence, and thus improve the life expectancy of the patient. In pursuing this goal, radio-guided surgery (RGS) represents a significant surgical adjunct to intraoperative detection of millimetric tumour residues. The goal of this project is to develop a novel radio-guided surgery (RGS) technique based on ß- radiation emission, which corresponds to a change of paradigm, since ß- radiation is currently used only for therapy due to its short tissue penetration. Intraoperatively, this feature can be exploited because it reduces the amount of background radiation from the adjacent radioactive tissues and organs, permitting the possibility of developing more compact probes, subsequently reducing the radiation exposure of the medical personnel. This technique has been studied so far with laboratory tests and simulations with very promising results confirmed by proof-of-principle clinical tests on meningioma with Y-90 labelled DOTATOC. This project aims at extending the technique by developing a detector that can be used in endoscopic applications and by carrying on the research of an innovative probe to be utilized in a endoscopic environment and by synthetizing a new radio-tracer suited for endoscopic approaches on head and neck tutors.
