ABSTRACT

This chapter analyses the latest advances and applications associated with one of the approaches, via an exploration of ultraviolet-based intraoperative brain imaging and mapping technologies. There is a strong and rapidly increasing trend in medicine toward the development of more compact, less invasive, smarter, and highly efficacious diagnostic and therapeutic devices and systems. The capacity for precise intraoperative imaging feedback, which can accurately distinguish between tumors and healthy brain tissues, is currently lacking. A number of photonics-based strategies have been applied to the diagnostic and intraoperative imaging of the brain. The demarcation of brain tumors using laser-induced fluorescence attenuation spectroscopy remains in its nascent clinical stages; hence, it is not yet available for intraoperative use. A novel, rapid and noninvasive neuroimaging technique known as intraoperative thermal imaging exhibited the potential ability to define the boundaries of primary and metastatic brain tumors.