The review was published in the International Journal of Cancer by Jan Heidkamp, Mirre Scholte, Camiel Rosman, Srirang Manohar, Jurgen Futterer and Maroeska Rovers. The work was a collaboration between Radboudumc and M3I. The authors looked at the new methods being studied for studying adequacy of margins after surgical resection of a tumor, looking in the surgical field, at the cavity and at the resected specimen. (See Figure). Criteria studied were patient and study characteristics, feasibility in clinical practice, diagnostic accuracy, technical properties and implementation. The myriad techniques were grouped into 16 groups: fluorescence, advanced microscopy, ultrasound, specimen radiography, optical coherence tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, elastic scattering spectroscopy, bio-impedance, X-ray computed tomography, mass spectrometry, Raman spectroscopy, nuclear medicine imaging, terahertz imaging, photoacoustic imaging, hyperspectral imaging, and pH measurement. The insights gained led to the conclusion is that the field of imaging techniques for intraoperative margin assessment is highly evolving. At this point in time, none of the techniques was found to be clearly superior in demonstrating high feasibility as well as high diagnostic accuracy. The review provides a unique overview of the opportunities and limitations of the currently available imaging techniques.
