CyPaM2

This project is about the experimental development of an innovative technology contributing to a major technological improvement in the cystoscopic medical imaging area. The aim is to develop and build an original cystoscopic panoramic imaging device based on bimodality in order to detect and localize patients’ urothelial cancerous lesions. The intesrest of such an innovative setup is to provide clinicians with more precise and efficient diagnostic information than with conventional cystoscopy, while remaining as non invasive as conventional cystoscopy. One part of the project is about developing an instrumentation that can be adapted to any type of commercially available cystoscopic devices. This device is made of i) a light generator composed of time-multiplexed white and violet (for fluorescence) light excitation sources following the acquisition video rate and of ii) a miniaturized video system acquiring images in several spectral bandwidths synchronized with the generator. The other part of the project is about image processing based on a software platform allowing for both visualizing bimodal image sequences simultaneously (white light and fluorescence) and building panoramic images in real-time automatically from acquired video sequences. Such a visualisation gives access to fluorescence information colocalized with white light global maps of bladder. Between 2000 and 2008, a bench prototype was used on phantoms to validate qualitatively and quantitatively the feasibility of panoramic bimodal image construction. Now a technological gap needs to be fulfilled in order to build a prototype that will be compatible with the clinical environment. This research project associates scientific, industrial and clinician partners: 3 university research laboratories, 2 companies already involved in development and technology transfer in the medical field and a private hospital specialised in cancer. This consortium provides the project with knowledges and experiences required to fulfill our expectation of the clinical device validation through a pilot study.