• 1 in 8 women in the UK develop breast cancer at some stage in their lifetime.
• In 2008 approximately 58% elected to have breast conserving surgery or lumpectomy
• One in five women who had breast conserving surgery in England had a reoperation. Reoperation was nearly twice as likely when the tumour had a carcinoma in situ component coded [1].
• In the US, half of re-excisions after initial lumpectomy were performed for margins that are positive [2].
A contemporaneous/intra-operative and sensitive screening tool for positive resection margin will have a huge impact on patient psychology, morbidity, mortality, healthcare cost and disease burden. The GLOW project carried out at Hamlyn Centre, Imperial College London, demonstrated that NIR ICG Fluorescence Imaging can be used in intra-operative tumour border demarcation [3]. The sensitivity in detecting tumour by hyperspectral imaging requires improvement for DCIS and connective tissue [6]. To this end, we have developed a combined fluorescence and multispectral camera.