Cancerous Lesions of the Oral Cavity Clinical Trial
Official title:
Interest of Spectroscopy in the Diagnosis of Cancerous and Precancerous Lesions of the Upper Airways (UA): Pilot Study
The detection of suspect lesions is based on the clinical examination of the oral cavity and
pharyngolaryngeal endoscopy, but the examination to confirm the diagnosis is a pathology
examination of the biopsy taken during the endoscopy. Taking the biopsy, however, can be
difficult. On the one hand , it is an invasive procedure, and may engender complications, and
on the other hand, certain modifications of the mucosa may be discrete, or not particularly
specific or, on the contrary, disseminated or extremely widespread.
Non-invasive tools to help the diagnosis could prove to be particularly interesting 1) to
restrict the use of biopsies to patients in whom it is really necessary 2) and to identify
the area where the biopsy should be done in cases of multiple lesions. In this context,
spectroscopy could be a promising alternative.
The investigator puts forward the hypothesis that cancerous and precancerous lesions of the
mucosa of the upper airways and digestive tract present a characteristic spectrometric
profile. Indeed, as malignant tumours are hypervascularized and as precancerous tumours show
signs of angiogenesis, investigators expect that the reflectance of haemoglobin will be
diminished in the specific wavelengths of 540 and 575 nm, corresponding to the principal
wavelengths absorbed by haemoglobin.
This pilot study will make it possible to construct an algorithm that could be used to
classify lesions of the upper airways and digestive tract as either seemingly benign or
cancerous.
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