PhD defence Y. (Yassine) Aaboubout

Below is a brief summary of the dissertation: 

Oral cavity cancer, primarily squamous cell carcinoma (OCSCC), affects 350,000 patients annually worldwide. Surgery, the primary treatment, aims for complete tumor resection with a margin of more than 5 mm of healthy tissue surrounding the tumor (adequate resection). However, adequate resections are only achieved in 15%-26% of the cases. This thesis investigates different forms of intraoperative assessment of resection margins (IOARM) to improve outcomes. Specimen-driven IOARM was shown to be superior. The specimen-driven IOARM method is described, in detail and has shown to increase adequate resections from 15% to 58%. However, it is subjective, labor-intensive, and requires a specialized team, limiting widespread adoption.
This thesis describes the development of a Raman spectroscopy-based IOARM device (RIOARM). This device uses a fiber-optic needle probe to rapidly (within 5 seconds) assess the distance between the resection surface and the tumor border. The tissue classification model achieved a sensitivity of 0.85 and specificity of 0.92, with margin length prediction showing a mean difference of -0.17 mm from histopathology. The RIOARM-device could potentially enable preoperative measurement of the depth of invasion (DOI), a key predictor for occult lymph node metastasis.
In conclusion, the RIOARM-device facilitates broader adoption of IOARM in oral cancer surgery, and its potential is not limited to oral cancer surgery alone.