Adimec's Q-2HFW-CXP high full well capacity CMOS camera is enabling ad…

Adimec's Q-2HFW-CXP high full well capacity CMOS camera is enabling advances in cancer assesment

As part of the FP7 funded CAReIOCA consortium, Adimec has been involved in the development of an extreme full well, high speed camera for non-invasive optical imaging for cancer assessment. 

The new 2 Megapixel CoaXPress camera (Q-2HFW-CXP) brings a 1440x1440 resolution at up to 550 fps based on 12 micron pixels. The design of the pixels in this global shutter CMOS image sensor, CMOSIS CSI2100, is optimized for maximum full well performance. An industry unique full well capacity (FWC) of over 2 million electrons per pixel is between 100 to 200 times higher compared to commonly available high speed CMOS sensor technology today (reference: 10-20 kel full well). 2 million electrons full well capacity per pixel results in extremely good shot noise performance of up to 63 dB SNR, making it possible to accurately detect very weak contrast variations in bright environments. The high speed capability of the camera drives high full well imaging into applications requiring high throughput or fast acquisition to observe highly dynamic situations as needed in in-vivo medical imaging and life science imaging.

There have recently been two articles about the success of the CAReIOCA project:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2946741 and an article in Mikroniek.  

The camera is being utilized in Full Field Optical Coherence Tomography (FF-OCT) systems to advance cancer
diagnosis.  Because the technique is not destructive compared to histology, which is the current standard, there are new possibilities for more thorough cancer assessment and treatment for cancer patients.

For example, at Leiden University Medical Center, there is a proof of concept study to detect metastases in ovarian tissue removed from patients prior to autotransplantation of the tissue which can be used to restore fertility in cancer patients following chemotherapy treatment.

Because chemotherapy and radiation can be harmful to ovaries, some eggs can be retrieved prior to cancer treatment for patients desiring continued fertility.  There is a risk that there is metastasis in the ovaries so the ovaries need to be checked for cancer before they are reintroduced into the body (autotransplantation) after cancer treatment.  Because histology is destructive, only a sample of the tissue could be tested.  This means there is a chance the cancer is missed if it is in the tissue that is not tested.  With FF-OCT, all of the tissue could be tested since it is not damaged. Also, FF-OCT can provide the added value of selecting the cortical ovarian fragments with the highest potential for restoring fertility.

Current research has been done to compare FF-OCT results to histology which is considered the standard and to have the results checked by pathologists.  More work will continue on this as well as other cancer assessment applications.

This camera can also be used in  (non-destructive) interferometric optical microscopy, defraction based contrast imaging, 2D shot noise limited bright scene imaging, and more.

For example, Adimec's high full well camera is used in research by MIT to push the sensitivity limits in interferometric microscopy:

https://www.osapublishing.org/ol/abstract.cfm?uri=ol-41-7-1656

 The researchers at MIT are imaging small cell membrane structure dynamics at high speed with high sensitivity to study malaria, cell mutation, cancer cells, and more. They are also implementing non-linear methods into 2D imaging as an improvement for medical research over the common approach based on single pixel detectors.