Presently, physical biopsies are excised from patients and prepared by histotechnicians for histologic analysis by a pathologist to diagnose a disease. These procedures are invasive, painful, and can be disfiguring. New near-infrared optical imaging techniques, called optical biopsies, are being developed to produce non-invasive or minimally invasive diagnosis of human diseases. Furthermore, optical biopsies can provide early detection of disease states by rapidly and non-invasively providing the Physician with an internal view of suspicious tissue. Optical Biopsy Technologies, Inc. long-term objective is to develop non- invasive or minimally invasive optical biopsy instruments. Early disease detection via optical biopsies can save lives. In Phase I, we will develop an optical imaging head or probe for tissue imaging. The probe will be small and designed to make vertical section images of tissue. The development of the optimum lens design and scanning system in Phase I will be incorporated into a source and detection system for in-vivo tissue imaging in Phase II work. In Phase II, we will integrate tissue imaging system components and a computer system interface will be developed. Clinical Trials will be initiated in Phase II. In Phase III we will commercialize an optical biopsy instrument that is FDA approved.
Potential applications include: colon cancer detection, cervical cancer detection, skin cancer detection, and mouth cancer detection.
