Point-of-Care Optical Device Could Improve Thyroid Cancer Screening

A team of international researchers developed a point-of-care device that could enable consistent and cost-effective screening for thyroid nodules. This novel device builds on the current ultrasound standard with a hybrid optics/ultrasound probe. The device’s optical module uses NIR time-resolve spectroscopy (TRS) and diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) to collect all the tissue data. The DCS laser subsystem features a fiber-coupled laser diode at 785 nm and custom-developed driving and cooling electronics. The custom design cuts the device cost by 10 to 15× that of a standard DCS laser system.

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