Clinical and experimental study of a terahertz time-domain system for the determination of the pathological margins of laryngeal carcinoma

OBJECTIVE: Laryngeal cancer is a common malignancy in otorhinolaryngological head and neck surgery, accounting for approximately one-third of all head and neck malignancies. Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) has recently been found to be useful for the detection of tumors. This study was conducted to investigate the application of THz-TDS in the diagnosis of pathological resection margins of laryngeal cancer. METHODS: Fresh laryngeal cancer tissues from 10 patients with laryngeal cancer were extracted, and after simultaneous HE staining and terahertz imaging, the tumor area, paracancerous area, and normal tissue area of each laryngeal cancer tissue sample were located under a microscope according to the pathological results of HE staining. RESULTS: The shape contours of the tumor region revealed by terahertz imaging maps and HE staining were similar. In the terahertz spectrum in the frequency range of 0.5–1.9 THz, both the absorption coefficient and refractive index values followed the order tumor > para cancer > normal tissue, with statistically significant differences (P < 0.01). When the terahertz frequency was 1.5 THz, the absorption coefficient of terahertz light waves by laryngeal cancer tissue and the percentage of nuclei showed an extremely high positive correlation (P < 0.01, r = 0.971). In the frequency ranges of 0.5–1.2 THz and 1.6–1.9 THz, the absorption coefficients of the highly differentiated group were higher than those of the moderately differentiated group. In the frequency range of 1.2–1.6 THz, the results were reversed, with statistically significant differences (P < 0.05). In the frequency range of 0.5–1.9 THz, the highly differentiated group had a higher refractive index than the moderately differentiated group, with a statistically significant difference (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: THz-TDS can be used to determine the pathological margins of laryngeal cancer based on the absorption coefficient and refractive index, and the magnitudes of the absorption coefficient and refractive index are related to the percentage of nuclei. The degree of differentiation of laryngeal cancer tissue can be assessed by THz-TDS. The study shows that the terahertz time-domain system is promising for applications in the diagnosis of laryngeal cancer, especially for the more accurate identification of intraoperative margins.