Vadim Backman, a McCormick professor of medical engineering and medical physics, is pioneering a new optical technique to offer extremely early detection to pancreatic cancer patients.

The technology, known as partial wave spectroscopic microscopy, analyzes light scattering to pick up on subtle cellular changes in the duodenum, a section of the small intestine, to detect the early telltale signs of the cancer, Backman said.

Pancreatic cancer ranks as the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States today with more than 37,000 Americans diagnosed in 2008, according to the National Cancer Institute. The survival rate hovers around 5 percent across genders and races.

Early detection is the most effective way to combat cancer. Today, hospital pathologists diagnose cancer when cells exhibit physical changes under a microscope, at which time the cancer may have already begun spreading throughout the body.

The optical technology detects changes that go on in a cancerous cell by observing its nanoarchitecture. This enables doctors to diagnose the cancer early on in its disease progression when treatments are most effective and survival rates are highest, Backman said.

“Nano-cell changes are one of the first things that go on in a (cancerous) cell,” he said. “We want to know what role these changes play in (cancer).”

In addition to offering “much earlier notification” of cancerous growths, this new generation of cancer detection techniques promises to be practical and minimally invasive, Backman said.

“(These techniques) will have a small cost and cause little discomfort (to the patient),” he said.

The technology behind partial wave spectroscopic microscopy has also been implemented in the detection of colon cancer by observing nanoscopic changes to cells in the rectum.

Backman’s research was funded by a National Science Foundation SGER grant, the National Institutes of Health and the V Foundation for Cancer Research.