# Project 1: Clinical Trials in Intraoperative Molecular Imaging of Non-Small Cell Cancer

> **NIH NIH P01** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2024 · $370,448

## Abstract

Project Summary
The primary goal of this Project is to translate near-infrared optical contrast agents for image-guided
bronchoscopy and surgery. When a patient is found to have a lung nodule, the two procedures are a
diagnostic bronchoscopy and a therapeutic surgery. However, these two procedures are plagued with
problems such as discriminating between cancerous and non-cancerous nodules, finding second
cancers, identifying positive margins, and performing an accurate back table pathological assessment.
Therefore, the success rate for bronchoscopy and surgery for lung cancer are both around 60%. There
are urgent unmet needs to develop new and innovative technologies that can assist the clinician in
localizing cancer cells, delineating tumor margins, and identifying micrometastases and draining lymph
nodes. We propose a new technology to image patients during standard-of-care bronchoscopy and
surgery in order to identify cancerous lesions, to discover residual local disease before completing the
procedure, and to render a diagnosis. While the proposed technologies are broadly applicable to solid
tumors, this project is specifically committed to improving detection of lung cancer, one of the most
aggressive human malignancies. To accomplish this goal, we have assembled a collaborative team at
University of Pennsylvania with synergistic expertise in clinical trials, lung pathology, thoracic surgery,
and imaging. The proposed work will optimize four distinct types of contrast agents in a combination or
cocktail for a translational intraoperative imaging clinical trials. The tracer combination will be evaluated
in a first-in-human clinical trial of lung cancer patients in order to determine if there is a benefit of
intraoperative imaging to standard-of-care bronchoscopy and surgery. The combination contrast agent
strategy will allow better imaging of diseased cells more deeply buried in the tissues. This will allow for
precise tumor localization and more accurate resection of cancers without violating the tumor capsule
or seeding the body cavity.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10907441
- **Project number:** 5P01CA254859-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Sunil Singhal
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $370,448
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-06-16 → 2027-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10907441

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10907441, Project 1: Clinical Trials in Intraoperative Molecular Imaging of Non-Small Cell Cancer (5P01CA254859-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10907441. Licensed CC0.

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