most common male-specific cancer. The choice of treatment and its
efficacy depends strongly on the stage of the cancer when it is diagnosed.
Screening procedures for males older than 30 years of age are well
established and begin with digital palpation and ultrasound imaging.
In case of a suspect result, further tests such as the blood level
of prostate specific antigen (PSA) test and biopsy are carried out.
However, only 80 percent of prostate cancers are diagnosed in the
By providing a more accurate and precise tool for diagnosing prostate
cancer in its early stages, the percentage of curable cancer patients
would increase dramatically. A lot of research work has attempted
to achieve this goal by using medical imaging with planar and computed
tomography, X-Ray systems or magnetic resonance imaging; yet the use
of these systems for screening and diagnosis is limited due to their
high costs and/or lack of sensitivity. Ultrasound
imaging systems are low-cost, but their effectiveness for prostate
cancer screening is limited by poor sensitivity and lack of molecular
specificity. A cost-efficient imaging technique with significantly
improved sensitivity and specificity would be extremely valuable.
to prove the concept of using optoacoustic imaging of gold-labelled
antibodies as an integrated biosensor based imaging system for the
production of specific and sensitive data for prostate cancer diagnoses.
of this objective requires excellent know-how on a variety of scientific
and technologic fields such as laser and ultrasound technologies and
image reconstruction, as well as the the bio-functionalization of
nanoparticles, system integration and experiments to evaluate the
application potential of the technique.
the project objectives, the partners of ADONIS, coming from five European
countries, are combining the necessary interdisciplinary know-how
in a jointly defined work programme, which comprises the development
and integration of the necessary laser and ultrasound transducer components
with bio-functionalized nanoparticles.
these contributing partners, the Institute of Cancer Research, will
experimentally evaluate the effectiveness of the developments during
the course of the project, feeding back results and comments in order
to optimize the technological components of the ADONIS system.