Deaths from cancer worldwide will continue to rise, with an estimated 12 million deaths in 2030. Prostate cancer, after lung cancer, is the second cause of cancer death in men worldwide. Some advanced prostate cancers have well known symptoms. However non-cancerous diseases of the prostate, such as benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) or prostatitis cause same symptoms. On the other hand, at very early stages, prostate cancer has no symptoms, the tumor dimension is quite small and it is extremely difficult to detect it. At the later stages, treatment or surgery has very low efficiency. To find cancer in people who do not have symptoms of that disease is extremely important. If prostate cancer is detected at an early stage it can be successfully cured by different methods. Consequently, it is possible to save lives.
Different methods, such as measurement of the amount of prostate specific antigen in the blood, digital rectal examination, trans-rectal ultrasound diagnosis are used for prostate cancer diagnosis. Unfortunately these methods are not able to detect cancer at early stage of it’s development.
Magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography made advances in prostate cancer diagnosis. However, these methods require extremely expensive and complicated technique and could not be used widely in clinics. Besides, high magnetic field and radiofrequency irradiation, X-rays, radioactive substances used in the method also can post some risk. Unfortunately, there is no cost efficient and easy method so far which might give reliable diagnose of prostate cancer at early stages, when the dimensions of newly developed cancer tissue are of millimeter size.
In this project, we propose to create an advanced, simple, cost effective and reliable device for early diagnosis of prostate cancer. The device will not require special skills or experience from the personnel and could be placed at any clinic for prostate cancer diagnosis. The methodology is based on established fact that near infrared light, contrary visible light, may pass through biological tissues. Special software will be developed for analysis of prostate infra-red images. The diagnosis system would allow distinguishing differences between cancerous and noncancerous tissues and identify the location of the cancer. Charge-coupled device (CCD) camera connected and computer will be used as infrared images detector.
In the frame of proposed project working prototype of prostate cancer early diagnosis device will be developed. It will give opportunity to detect prostate cancer outgrowth at very early stage of its development. End-users for the project results will be urological clinics in Georgia and other countries. Existing methods of prostate cancer diagnosis do not give opportunity to detect prostate cancer (tumor) at early stage of cancer development. Our device will be addressed to detect prostate cancer at very early stage and thereby save lives of patients.
Patients will be diagnosed using standard methodology for cancer detection, which includes PSA measurement, digital rectal examination and biopsy. In the case of cancer detection the radical prostatectomy will be done. After this, prostate will be investigated using infrared (IR) irradiation and IR images will be obtained and locations of carcinomas will be detected. Then prostate will be examined with standard histomorphological methods for detecting carcinoma areas and degree of aggressiveness. Results of histomorphological investigations will be compared to results obtained after IR investigations. Usually IR image of cancerous tissue represents optically denser areas in comparison with normal tissue. The IR images will be processed using new developed software.
Manager of the project will be Alexandre Khuskivadze. He is professor of urology chair of Tbilisi State Medical University. He is high qualified physician-scientist, surgeon. He is head of the surgical clinic “Gidmemdi” of the Tbilisi State Medical University.
Doctor of biological science Besarion Partsvania will be the Principal Investigator. B. Partsvania is highly qualified scientist. His specialization is biophysics. He was manager-principal investigator in numerous scientific projects, particularly in projects awarded by ISTC, GNSF etc. His total number of publications is 80, patent-1.
Dr. Gia Petriashvili is high qualification scientists. His sphere of interest includes Optics, Photo and Electro optics of Liquid Crystals, Polymer and Liquid Crystal doped nanoparticles. It is obvious that his knowledge and experience will promote project implementation. Full number of publications of G. Petriashvili is 120, Patents-3.
Team member David Kochiashvili is physicians, surgeons. In 1998 maintained doctoral degree. He is Head of urological affairs of the Academician Kipshidze central clinics 2007-up to now. D. Kochiashvili is Member of expert commission of ministry of healthcare and ministry of justice of Georgia, member of European urologic association, Head of urologic association of Tbilisi. D. Kociasshvili is author of 73 scientific publications. He was Invited professor in Sweden (2001), Israel (2006).
Dr. Tamaz Sulaberidze is specialists of imaging processing, digital data analyze and processing. He developed methods of prognosis and modeling of random events.
3 former weapon scientists together with others will work in civilian environment on civilian problem and will contribute to peaceful problem, thereby proposed project completely address ISTC objectives.
Scopes of activities include:
1.1. Patients‘ diagnosis, surgical operations, microscopic and histomorphological investigations of the prostate tissues.
2.1. Investigation of penetration of IR light in noncancerous prostate tissue for passed mode.
2.2. Investigation of penetration of IR light in cancerous prostate tissue for passed mode.
2.3. Investigation of IR light penetration into the noncancerous prostate tissue in back scattered mode.
2.4 Investigation of IR light penetration into the cancerous prostate tissue in back scattered mode.
2.4. Computer processing of the prostate tissue infrared images with the purpose of creation of the software.
2.6. Investigation of the optical properties of the noncancerous prostate tissue in the polarized IR light.
2.7. Investigation of the optical properties of the cancerous prostate tissue in the polarized IR light.
3.1. Creation of the working model of the prostate cancer early diagnosis.
Role of foreign collaborators are:
· Participation in the development of project proposal and work plan.
· Exchange of information during project implementation.
· Review of technical reports.
· Joint seminars, workshops, meetings, consultations.
· Sharing of scarce materials, samples, resources.
· Efforts towards the potential commercialization of project results.
