Diagnostic Photonics raises $3.1 million for a probe to prevent repeat cancer surgeries

A Chicago-based company has raised $3.1 million to fund a clinical trial for its high-resolution imaging probes for cancer surgeons.

Diagnostic Photonics, which launched in 2011 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, hopes its technology will prevent multiple surgeries for cancer patients. The company is focusing efforts first on breast cancer because about 25 percent of affected women undergo multiple surgeries after lumpectomy, according to a study conducted by the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center in Madison.

The repeat surgeries are often spurred by the “challenges of where does the cancer stop and normal tissues start,” said CEO and president Andrew Cittadine.

The company’s Foresee (4C) Imaging System uses near-infrared light source technology to help doctors identify whether they’ve removed all cancer tissue. The device resembles a handheld microscope, Cittadine said.

The new funding, the first close of a $6 million Series B financing, will fund a nationwide, 400-person study with the goal of gaining FDA clearance. In late 2014, the company completed a 46-patient study, which indicated reoperation could have potentially been avoided in 63 percent of patients examined using the Foresee system, according to the report published in the Annals of Surgical Oncology.