TECHNOLOGY SUMMARY

HYPOSENS technology is a unique all optical cancer prognostic system that determines specifically the presence of cancer cells in the breast lymph nodes, which indicates cancer metastasis and thus a bad prognosis. This tool will be extremely useful for patient stratification and will represent a significant decrease in the diagnostic costs and an increase in the welfare of patients.

BENEFITS

  • Label-free: The photonics system uses tumour targeted nano-confined sensors for intracellular temperature and oxygen sensing.
  • Minimally invasive: It does not require surgery to test the lymph node status.
  • Fast: Produces results in real-time.
  • Accurate: The nano-confined sensor particles is able to monitor both temperature and dissolved oxygen. Coupling the nano-sensors with target antigens ensures the proper identification of the targeted tumour cells.
  • Safe: The prognosis system does not release any ionising radiation.
  • Simple: The device incorporates a “plug & play” architecture which render it easy to operate.
  • Affordable: Due to the compact nature of the imaging system, the development this technology results in a decrease in the diagnostic costs associated with metastatic breast cancer.

APPLICATIONS

This imaging system is strategically designed to offer a minimally invasive alternative to the SLNB process. With an approximate cost of €60,000 per device unit and additional €5,500 per patient, the device is an affordable, accurate, easy to use prognostic solution for clinicians, which intends to offer a real time diagnosis of breast cancer metastasis.

Although the technology is initially designed for detecting breast cancer cells, it could be potentially adapted for other cancers in which practitioners also employ SLNB as the current prognosis test (e.g. vulval, colorectal and gastric cancer, pelvic and renal tumours), via the use of different tumour-targeting moieties.

TAGs

  • Medical device
  • Front shaping imaging
  • Targeted nanocapsules
  • Oxygen & temperature sensors
  • Cancer metastasis