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18 Feb 2026
Quantitative micro-elastography approach identifies cancerous tissues remaining after surgery.
OncoRes Medical of Perth, Australia, has closed a private funding round in support of its tumor imaging technology.The funding, worth AUD $27 million, will progress clinical development and regulatory milestones for its Elora imaging system, targeted at breast cancer treatment.
Elora is based on the company's quantitative micro-elastography (QME) platform combining OCT and elastography data, developed to assist surgeons in accurately identifying cancerous tissue for removal.
Removal of all cancerous tissue while leaving healthy tissue intact is a major challenge during all cancer surgery, and a number of optical technologies have been applied to the task.
These have included photoacoustic imaging, exploiting that modality's ability to visualize blood vessels via the photoacoustic responses of hemoglobin molecules; and autofluoresence lifetime imaging, overcoming the limitations of intensity-based measurements.
The OncoRes alternative employs an elastography approach, with QME mapping microscale tissue stiffness. Cancerous tissue is known to vary in stiffness from healthy tissue, and this method has demonstrated a high diagnostic accuracy in detecting cancer in specimens excised during surgery, according to the company, although clinical translation depends upon ways to apply the technique directly in the patient.
Elora was granted FDA Breakthrough Device Designation in 2020, which supports development of technologies with potential to provide more effective treatment of life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating health conditions. This will also support expedited approval and reimbursement coverage for Elora upon FDA approval in the US, noted the company.
In 2022 OncoRes demonstrated a handheld QME probe designed to interrogate the surgical cavity during breast-conserving cancer surgery, and determined that this offered a potentially reliable intraoperative solution.
Micro-scale maps of tissue stiffness
OncoRes has now opened an Australian clinical trial across six different hospitals and two states, which will recruit more than 110 breast cancer patients and mark the first time the Elora device will be used interventionally.
Following the excision of the main specimen during breast-conserving surgery, the Elora probe is applied within the breast cavity and a micro-scale three-dimensional map of the mechanical and optical properties of the scanned region is generated.
As described by OncoRes these micro-scale maps of tissue stiffness offer surgeons a mechanical and optical imaging method for assessing breast tissue for the presence of microscopic or otherwise non-palpable cancerous tissue, remaining inside the breast cavity.
Securing of the new funding is framed by OncoRes as an endorsement of the Elora technology and its potential to positively impact clinical outcomes, as well as a meaningful achievement for Australia's innovation sector at large.
"The funding will be immediately deployed to support our Australian clinical trial, together with product development, regulatory milestones and manufacturing for our US pivotal trial," commented OncoRes CEO Katharine Giles. "We will also expand the team and progress proof-of-concept work for this technology in other cancer types, including prostate cancer, which is deeply exciting."
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