Laboratory for Engineering of Early Cancer Diagnosis

Laboratory type:: teaching and research-expert laboratory
Description of laboratory activities:: characterization and early diagnosis, as well as screening of biological tissues using OMIS devices, FTIR, and UV/Vis/NIR spectroscopy

The Laboratory for Engineering of Early Cancer Diagnosis has been successfully developing and improving cancer detection methods for many years. The Department of Biomedical Engineering developed and patented the Optomagnetic Imaging Spectroscopy (OMIS) method, authored by Dr. Đuro Koruga, retired Full Professor, and Dr. Aleksandar Tomić, Scientific Associate, which provides significant contributions to the characterization of materials, with an emphasis on biological materials. Today, this method, in its improved form, with new hardware and software solutions, achieves significant and high accuracy rates in detecting various types of cancer.

Black devices lined up on a white table: devices on metal holders on the left and right, and in the middle three smaller devices and a housing with a white and blue handheld device on top. — Fig. 1 Various versions of the OMIS device for imaging differently prepared biological samples: in vitro (device on the left and device on the right) and in vivo (devices in the middle)

One of the significant contributions of the Department of Biomedical Engineering is the development of a method and device construction for early diagnosis of cervical cancer, which serves for quick, simple, and painless detection of abnormal cells in samples taken by swabs from the cervix and cervical canal. This device serves as a screening and diagnostic method, and due to its simplicity, it can be used in health centers to relieve specialized hospitals and screen a large number of women. The device was developed as an improved version of the original OMIS device as part of the project by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia III 41006 titled "Development of new methods and techniques for early diagnosis of cervical, colorectal, oral cavity, and melanoma cancer based on digital images and excitation-emission spectra in the visible and infrared domains."

In addition to examining cervical cells to detect cancer at an early stage, the Laboratory for Engineering of Early Cancer Diagnosis also examined tissue samples of the colon and oral cavity in vitro and skin in vivo, as well as other biological tissues. From the mentioned research conducted within the project, in collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Belgrade, and GAK Narodni Front, the following doctoral dissertations emerged:

D. Kojić (2010): “Characterization of structural, mechanical, electrical, and magnetic properties of skin using optical and nanoprobe microscopes“, supervisor Dr. Đuro Koruga, Full Professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade
B. Jeftić (2017): "Algorithm for determining the biophysical state of epithelial tissue based on spectroscopy", supervisor Dr. Lidija Matija, Full Professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade
A. Dragičević (2018): "Biomechanical and optical characterization of epidermal tissue", supervisor Dr. Lidija Matija, Full Professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade
B. Lisul (2019): "Application of optomagnetic imaging spectroscopy in biophysical characterization of marginal and cancer-altered tissue in the oral cavity", supervisor Dr. Đurica Grga, Full Professor at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Belgrade

These contributed the following results in early cancer detection:

scale 70–100%

Tissue	Position on the scale	Result
Skin – in vivo:		90-92%
Cervix – in vitro (PAP II – PAP V slides):		94-96%
Colon tissues – ex vivo:		92-96%
Oral cavity – in vitro:		82-84%
	708090100

Project III 41006