Interest of Spectroscopy in the Diagnosis of Cancerous and Precancerous Lesions of the Upper Airways (UA): Pilot Study

The detection of suspect lesions is based on the clinical examination of the oral cavity and pharyngolaryngeal endoscopy, but the examination to confirm the diagnosis is a pathology examination of the biopsy taken during the endoscopy. Taking the biopsy, however, can be difficult. On the one hand , it is an invasive procedure, and may engender complications, and on the other hand, certain modifications of the mucosa may be discrete, or not particularly specific or, on the contrary, disseminated or extremely widespread.

Non-invasive tools to help the diagnosis could prove to be particularly interesting 1) to restrict the use of biopsies to patients in whom it is really necessary 2) and to identify the area where the biopsy should be done in cases of multiple lesions. In this context, spectroscopy could be a promising alternative.

The investigator puts forward the hypothesis that cancerous and precancerous lesions of the mucosa of the upper airways and digestive tract present a characteristic spectrometric profile. Indeed, as malignant tumours are hypervascularized and as precancerous tumours show signs of angiogenesis, investigators expect that the reflectance of haemoglobin will be diminished in the specific wavelengths of 540 and 575 nm, corresponding to the principal wavelengths absorbed by haemoglobin.

This pilot study will make it possible to construct an algorithm that could be used to classify lesions of the upper airways and digestive tract as either seemingly benign or cancerous.