Consultant Orthopaedic Oncologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Newcastle University, Dr. Kenneth Rankin has decided to reunite with his fellow specialists across the Netherlands, UK, Japan, Canada, and USA to push new surgical treatment technologies in cases of bone tumours. An upcoming clinical trial that is going to be led by Dr. Rankin and assisted by the Bone Cancer Research Trust will study the effectiveness of a dye known as Indocyanine Green, or ICG, which can be given to patients before their surgery and thereby leads to the tumour fluorescing green.
The trial has plans to recruit 500 patients so as to test if the use of ICG in the fluorescence guided surgery can aid in identifying the tumour, help in an absolute removal and also reduce the healthy tissue amount be reduced. An expert research group has agreed that this type of guided surgery can lead to a significant level of patient benefit when it comes to reducing local recurrences as well as the surgery’s effects. That said, collaborative research is the need of the hour in this area, and the combined efforts and expertise will lead to researchers speeding up the introduction of patient care technologies.
Dr. Rankin, who is also a part of the Newcastle Hospital Trust, adds that they are indeed excited to highlight the fact that the cancer surgery technology is developing at a rapid pace, and with the funding from a trust as big as Bone Cancer Research, they will be working along with surgeons, scientists, as well as pathologists from across the world in order to test new techniques so as to elevate cancer operations for the bone sarcoma patients. This is bound to have an impact over the long term for patients suffering from different cancer types.
Fluorescence guided surgery happens to be an innovative technique which makes use of the light emission to get to know the tumours precise location and also boundaries at the time of a surgical removal. It enhances the surgeon’s capacity to successfully remove the whole tumour and decreases the probability of any cancer cells remaining. The consortium is all set to bring together researchers from across the world who are working towards improving tumour removal by way of surgery while at the same time limiting its impact on the patient’s functionality as well as quality of life.
