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RAman For Thyroid cancER (RAFTER)

G

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Status

Not yet enrolling

Conditions

Thyroid Diseases
Thyroid Cancer

Treatments

Procedure: thyroid lobectomy
Device: Raman spectroscopy probe measurement

Study type

Observational

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT04040673
18/LO/1545 (Other Identifier)
245612 (Other Identifier)
18/044/GHT

Details and patient eligibility

About

Ex vivo vibrational spectroscopy (VS), including Raman spectroscopy (RS) of thyroid tissue samples, collected from patients undergoing routine diagnostic thyroid biopsies for diagnosis of potential thyroid cancer. Raman spectra are to be correlated with consensus histopathology and clinical outcomes. Multivariate analysis to be used to evaluate the classification accuracy of VS ex vivo.

Full description

The Investigators (The Biophotonics Research Unit, University of Exeter and University of Bristol) have developed these "smart needle" probes, consisting of fibre-optics within a fine needle for investigating cancer below the skin's surface. It is difficult to create a sensitive probe to fit inside a needle; however, The Investigators have demonstrated this approach in lymph node tissue samples from 68 patients in the laboratory, where The Investigators showed that our probe could detect cancer with a high level of accuracy.

Following on from our success with lymph nodes The Investigators wish to trial our smart needle on excised thyroid to demonstrate the device in another ENT cancer. Earlier studies have shown that thyroid cancer can be diagnosed using RS under a microscope with an accuracy greater than 78%.9 By eliminating the need for unnecessary surgery by diagnosis with our device, The Investigators will minimise the risk to patients, eliminate delays in obtaining results and reduce the cost of surgery and overnight stay in the hospital. The Investigators wish to advance this device closer to the clinic for a new cancer to improve the patient care pathway and remove the need for unnecessary surgery, by facilitating the work of the one-stop ENT diagnostic outpatient clinics.

The study consists of measuring spectra of new tissue taken during routine diagnostic surgical thyroid lobectomy.

New tissue for this project will be collected during routine biopsy will be rapidly analysed by a spectrometer before proceeding with conventional histopathological analysis. The new tissue will consist of thyroid and adjacent tissue biopsies. No additional tissue will be taken for this research, The Investigators only plan to measure samples taken during routine diagnosis in under 5 minutes, before passing the sections back to the surgical team for routine histopathological analysis.

Anonymous background information relevant to known risk factors, family history and details of any treatment, menopausal status, details relevant medical procedures, and any treatment for thyroid cancer will be provided with the samples. An example of the report can be found in Appendix 3. Tissue specimens taken during routine clinical care are to be subjected to ex vivo vibrational spectroscopic analysis immediately prior to being sent for routine histopathological analysis. Vibrational spectra are to be correlated with consensus histopathology of adjacent sections. Multivariate analysis is to be used to evaluate the classification accuracy of VS ex vivo. The vibrational spectra will be assessed for both prognostic as well as diagnostic information.

Enrollment

40 estimated patients

Sex

All

Ages

18+ years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

  • Patients undergoing routine diagnostic thyroid biopsy at surgery

Exclusion criteria

  • Patients are unable to provide informed consent.
  • Patients not attending for standard diagnostic biopsy for thyroid cancer

Trial design

40 participants in 5 patient groups

Normal benign
Description:
participants with normal benign nodules (no cancer)
Treatment:
Device: Raman spectroscopy probe measurement
Procedure: thyroid lobectomy
Follicular thyroid cancer
Description:
participants with follicular thyroid cancer
Treatment:
Device: Raman spectroscopy probe measurement
Procedure: thyroid lobectomy
Papillary thyroid cancer
Description:
participants with papillary thyroid cancer
Treatment:
Device: Raman spectroscopy probe measurement
Procedure: thyroid lobectomy
Anaplastic thyroid cancer
Description:
participants with anaplastic thyroid cancer
Treatment:
Device: Raman spectroscopy probe measurement
Procedure: thyroid lobectomy
Medullary thyroid cancer
Description:
participants with medullary thyroid cancer
Treatment:
Device: Raman spectroscopy probe measurement
Procedure: thyroid lobectomy

Trial documents
1

Trial contacts and locations

1

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Central trial contact

Julia Hall

Data sourced from clinicaltrials.gov

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