Laser Biomedical Applications Division

Development of point-of-care medical devices for improved healthcare

Translation of research from 'Lab-to-Land' is an essential requirement for efficient healthcare management in developing countries like India. Necessity of affordable, rapid and reliable technologies is fast increasing in the field of medical diagnosis. Recent research has shown significant potential of optics and photonics technology for rapid and reliable diagnosis of diseases. Optical techniques are inherently advantageous for being rapid and sensitive and also for their capability in providing minimally invasive disease diagnosis. We at LBAD, are dedicated towards research and development of point-of care devices based on optical imaging and spectroscopy for healthcare.

Biophotonics was initially explored at LBAD for understanding laser/ light tissue interaction. The transformation of a normal tissue towards malignancy results in several biochemical changes which are reflected in the optical signatures obtained from the tissue. Subsequently laser- induced fluorescence (LIF) was explored to identify characteristic differences in the fluorescence emitted from normal and malignant tissue sites. Further, intensive studies to identify the excitation wavelength(s) which can lead to large differences in the fluorescence characteristics of normal and diseased tissue sites and development of algorithms which can exploit these differences for diagnosis were performed.

Building on the expertise developed through these previous studies, LBAD has developed three point-of-care devices for applications in actual clinical settings - TuBerculoScope, OncoVision (a vision enhanced module) and OncoDiagnoScope. These devices are targeted for early diagnosis of two ubiquitous diseases in India- Tuberculosis and cancer (oral and cervical). TuBerculoScope is a portable and affordable fluorescence imaging device that is intended for rapid detection of tuberculosis causing bacteria in dye-stained sputum smears. OncoVision helps identifying oral tissue transforming towards malignancy based on the differences in the fluorescence emission characteristics from an abnormal and normal tissue type. OncoDiagnoScope is a point-of-care optical device for non-invasive screening of oral cavity for abnormalities leading to cancer. It performs fluorescence and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy based characterization of oral tissue into normal and abnormal types (tissues transforming towards cancer).

(1) TuBerculoScope - A low cost and compact fluorescence imaging device for rapid detection of tuberculosis

TuBerculoScope, developed at RRCAT, is a low cost, compact and user friendly fluorescence imaging device useful for rapid detection of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). The device displays fluorescence images of Mycobacterium tuberculi bacteria (Mtb) from a patient’s sputum smeared on a microscope glass slide following its staining with an appropriate fluorescent dye and illumination with a light emitting diode (LED).

TuBerculoScope along with the Graphic User Interface (GUI) software
TuBerculoScope along with the Graphic User Interface (GUI) software


(2) OncoVision – A low cost fluorescence imaging tool for identification of malignant and potentially malignant lesions of oral cavity

OncoVision is a simple, hand-held device for real-time, non-contact and in-situ imaging of fluorescence from superficial tissues like human oral cavity, cervix, skin etc. intended for improved visual assessment.

OncoVision -Vision Enhancement Module
OncoVision -Vision Enhancement Module


(3) OncoDiagnoScope - A stand-alone, field-usable optical spectroscopy based point-of-care device for instant non-invasive diagnosis of oral cavity cancer

OncoDiagnoScope, developed at LBAD, is a compact and portable, easy to use, optical spectroscopy based health-care device to help doctors non-invasively detect, in real-time, whether any pre-cancerous or cancerous lesion is present in the oral cavity of the subject he is examining.

OncoDiagnoScope along with the Graphic User Interface (GUI) software
OncoDiagnoScope along with the Graphic User Interface (GUI) software
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