Multimodal imaging for veterinary oncology using a combination of optical coherence tomography and photoacoustic microscopy

Project title:

"Multimodal imaging for veterinary oncology using a combination of optical coherence tomography and photoacoustic microscopy"

Project contract number:

Lzp-2019/1-0254

Project implementation deadline:

01.01.2020. - 31.12.2022.

Total project funding:

300 000,00 EUR

Research manager:

Mindaugas Tamosiunas (Biophotonics laboratory)

Project administrator:

Inga Šīrante

About the project:

In the project, veterinary diagnostic device will be built based on various optical techniques as photoacoustics and optical coherence tomography. The device will be tested for diagnosing skin tumors in dogs and cats. Our approach can replace unpleasant biopsy, which requires invasive tissue sampling with a needle.

Multimodal imaging results will describe the microscopic structure, oxygenation status and the main biological chromophores of the skin and subcutaneous tumors investigated (e.g. lipomas, MCTs, and hemangiosarcomas). Thus veterinary researchers and doctors will be abile to retrieve the tissue histology related information in a new, less invasive way. The main challenge for the future is the ability of proposed multimodal imaging to replace fine-needle aspiration cytology (current clinical method) which is invasive, slow, and painful for animals.