Minimally Invasive Imagery With Indocyanine Green

According to the World Health Organization, lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in men and women, and is responsible for 1.3 million deaths worldwide annually as of 2004. Surgery remains the best option for patients presenting with operable Stage I or II cancers, however the five year survival rate for these candidates remains at a dismal 53% for Stage I and 32% for Stage II (1). The high rates of recurrence suggest that surgeons are unable to completely detect and remove primary tumor nodules in a satisfactory manner as well as lingering metastases in sentinel lymph nodes. By ensuring a negative margin through near-infrared imagery it would be possible for us to improve the rates of recurrence free patients and thus overall survival. The use of an ICG probe will allow for the operating field and lung tissue to be observed in real-time. ICG has been used in the clinical settings since 1957. There is a wealth of data available attesting to the safety of this drug injected at its current clinically indicated dosing level. ICG has been shown to preferentially uptake in esophageal tumors as opposed to surrounding epithelial lumen after one minute of IV exposure (2). Additionally, the same group reported being able to better characterize the vascularization of the tumor to further clarify the invasiveness of the cancer. ICG usage has been shown to be safe in a similar clinical setting by the Gotoh group, who used ICG to detect and characterize bullous and emphysematous lesion of the lung in video assisted thoracoscopic surgeries (VATS) with Infrared Thoracoscopy that were not previously detectable by white light (3). The currently proposed trial is a single center, open-label pilot/observational cohort study. Patients with a diagnosis of resectable thoracic nodule/mass who are presumed to be resectable via minimally invasive surgery as determined by pre-operative assessment at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania will be included.