ICFO near-IR platform sees details of thyroid pathologies

18 Dec 2024

Platform incorporating diffuse optics assesses thyroid blood flow and neck anatomy from one probe.

A project at Spain's ICFO research center has employed diffuse optics in a platform designed to monitor thyroid health, to assist disease diagnosis and therapy.

Thyroid diseases affect 200 million people worldwide, and in most thyroid pathologies the blood flow around the gland is affected by the condition.

Monitoring the vascularization and hemodynamics would therefore be valuable information for clinicians, but current non-invasive monitoring methods available in clinics lack the necessary sensitivity or are impractical for large-scale deployment, according to ICFO.

Near-IR spectroscopy (NIRS) and imaging offer a solution, being capable of probing deep into tissues and indicating details of blood flow. These methods are also relatively inexpensive and easily integrated into clinical practice.

As described in Biomedical Optics Express, the new device builds on ICFO's previous work in the European LUCA consortium, which sought to deploy optical spectroscopy and clinical ultrasound together for the detection of thyroid nodules.

Announced in 2021, LUCA - named for Laser and Ultrasound Co-Analyzer - combined eight-wavelength near-IR time resolved spectroscopy (TD-NIRS), sixteen-channel diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS), and clinical ultrasound in a single device.

"By simultaneously measuring the tissue hemodynamics and performing ultrasound imaging, this platform aims to tackle the low specificity and sensitivity of the current thyroid cancer diagnosis techniques," commented ICFO during initial trials of LUCA.

ICFO has now used the LUCA platform to characterize the thyroid tissue with simultaneous anatomical measurements, the first characterization of thyroid properties in a large clinical campaign with healthy subjects and patients with thyroid nodules according to the project.

Allows personalized clinical care

The new project studied 65 subjects, including 18 healthy volunteers and 47 patients with thyroid nodules. The impact on the analysis of anatomical variables including the depth of the thyroid, and pathological conditions such as the presence of nodules on the characteristics of thyroid tissue, were assessed along with how easily well the device might be integrated into existing screening procedures.

In use, the device is located correctly on the patient's thyroid using ultrasound images, after which the TD-NIRS and DCS modalities measure thyroid light absorption and scattering, tissue oxygenation, blood flow and oxygen metabolism.

Results showed that patient age and body mass index significantly affected optical parameters, reducing the measured oxygen saturation, hemoglobin concentration and blood flow. In addition, an initial comparison between benign and malignant nodules showed lower oxygen saturation in the benign nodules, a result that is currently being investigated in a larger ongoing clinical campaign.

Uncovering these differences will allow measures to be taken to account for them in future personalised clinical care regimes. The new data also confirm the value of diffuse optical technologies in endocrinology research.

"These tools can help to improve diagnostic accuracy, allowing doctors to detect thyroid disorders earlier, reduce the reliance on invasive biopsies and support personalized treatments," commented ICFO.