SensL has revealed details of its involvement in the development of a new medical imaging tool for prostate cancer biopsies. This specialised prostate biopsy guidance tool is based on diagnostic positron emission tomography (PET). It will include a miniaturised probe for direct prostate imaging and an external gamma camera to provide full PET imaging. The tool will provide several advantages over the traditional non-guided biopsy procedures, including increased accuracy, and a significant reduction of patient discomfort caused by non-guided biopsy methods.
SensL are in collaboration with West Virginia University (WVU) (Morganton, West Virginia, USA) in developing this biopsy tool. The SensL probe will be incorporated into the imaging system, which is under development at WVU, to provide high resolution capabilities down to 1mm using a unique depth of interaction technique. This will allow a significant performance boost over using existing external based imagers. A combination of SensL's low light detector technology and WVU's biopsy imaging system forms an accurate, targeted and minimally invasive solution for prostate cancer detection.
Speaking on the choice of the low profile silicon photomultiplier detector technology from SensL, Dr Carl Jackson, CEO of SensL said: 'The bulky vacuum tube-based PMT is just not made to be used in this application. With SensL's compact, low profile design combined with user safe operating voltages, our technology is clearly the best solution.'
