SPECTRA: Intraoperative Hyperspectral Imaging for Prostate Cancer (SPECTRA)

September 14, 2026 updated by: Massimo Valerio

Radical prostatectomy (RP) is currently one of the gold standard of care in managing localized prostate cancer (Pca). However, despite advances in Robot-Assisted RP (RARP), cancer cells may still be found (up to 42%) at the edge of the removed prostate specimen, commonly referred as Positive Surgical Margins (PSM). PSM are well-known risk factors of adverse oncological outcomes (biochemical recurrence).

It is therefore essential to characterize intraoperatively the tumor extent. In RARP, the leading intraoperative margin assessment (IMA) technique, NeuroSAFE is based on Intra-operative frozen section (IFS) of both prostate lateral sides sampled at 3-5 mm intervals. However, despite proven oncological benefit, adoption is still limited to expert centers due to a prolonged operative time, loss of integrity of the surgical specimen for definitive histopathological analysis, omission of regions (apex, base), and logistical complexity (trained uropathologist, cryostat…).

With this prospective single-center project, we wish to explore the use of non-invasive optical imaging technology, HyperSpectral Imaging (HSI), as a reliable alternative for examination of the ex-vivo prostate specimen to

  1. Distinguish normal versus tumor tissue at the surgical margin in fresh specimen.
  2. Quantify whether HSI can be integrated into the intraoperative workflow (feasibility), thus, image acquisition time and inference time should then be evaluated.

Study Overview

Status

Status

Indicates the current recruitment status or the expanded access status.
Recruiting

Conditions

Conditions

The disease, disorder, syndrome, illness, or injury that is being studied. On ClinicalTrials.gov, conditions may also include other health-related issues, such as lifespan, quality of life, and health risks.

Intervention / Treatment

Intervention / Treatment

A process or action that is the focus of a clinical study. Interventions include drugs, medical devices, procedures, vaccines, and other products that are either investigational or already available. Interventions can also include noninvasive approaches, such as education or modifying diet and exercise.

Detailed Description

Prostate cancer (Pca) is the second most frequently diagnosed cancer in men worldwide with over 1.5 million new cases annually and a median age at diagnosis of 66 years. Despite the natural history being slow and clinically insignificant in most cases, its heterogeneity and high prevalence mean it remains the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Treatment options depend on cancer stage, risk stratification and patient preferences.

Radical prostatectomy (RP), which consists of the surgical removal of the prostate and the seminal vesicles, is one of the gold-standard curative treatment for localized diseases. RP techniques include open, laparoscopic, and robotic-assisted surgery. Despite recent advances in the robotic field, positive surgical margins (PSM) can occur up to 42 %. According to the International Society of Urological Pathology (ISUP), PSM is defined by tumor cells reaching the inked surgical margin of the prostatectomy specimen. PSM significantly reduces progression-free survival and is a known prognostic parameter for postoperative biochemical recurrence (BCR).

Current margin assessment relies on Intraoperative Frozen Section (IFS), the current gold-standard technique is the Neurovascular Structure-Adjacent Frozen-Section Examination (NeuroSAFE). It consists of an IFS analysis of tissue adjacent to neurovascular bundles. While this neurovascular structure sparing method improves postoperative erectile function and reduces PSM, its implementation is limited due to additional operating time (45-60 minutes), increased resource demands on pathology departments, and the inability to provide a whole specimen analysis.

Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) combines conventional imaging (camera) with a spectrometer, providing both spatial and spectral information of the analyzed structures, enabling tissue differentiation based on structural properties. HSI uses reflectance spectroscopic imaging measurements, which involve a white light irradiation of the tissue and subsequently a recording of the remitted spectral intensities. The interaction between the incident light and the tissue modifies the light's spectral distribution with the reflected light containing information about the tissue composition. This technology has already been successfully applied in visceral surgery to quantify liver viability during ischemic and reperfusion phases. More recently, in Urology, HSI was successfully used as a predictive tool for early postoperative kidney graft.

Another clinical application of HSI is the ability to discriminate between normal and cancerous tissue as observed in gastric, head and neck (H&N), colorectal, brain and breast cancers. Similarly, in 2024, spectral data from Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS) showed promising results achieving an average sensitivity of 89% with a specificity of 82%, in 59 prostatectomy specimens, confirming the potential of spectroscopy. However, DRS approach comes with limitations, more particularly in spatial orientation because it requires multiple point-based measurements across the prostate surface with the inability to evaluate the entire tissue volume. In contrast, HSI provides spatially resolved spectral data across the entire field of view, enabling comprehensive tissue mapping. In 2012, the feasibility of HSI for PCa detection was evaluated in in-vivo mice and in pathological tissue slides, achieving 93% sensitivity and 97% specificity using a support vector machine algorithm and providing an estimated AUC-ROC of 0.9485. In this context, HSI provides a unique opportunity to assess fully a specimen. However, its application for real-time margin assessment during surgery remains unexplored. Recently, a 3D pipeline that co-registers multi-angle ex-vivo HSI with volumetric histopathology was implemented, enabling voxel-wise tumor segmentation and AR visualization in H&N specimens using convolutional neural networks (CNNs).

This project aims to validate HSI feasibility in ex-vivo prostate specimens. By providing a non-invasive and contactless evaluation in the operating theatre, HSI could reduce PSM rates, minimizing adjuvant radiotherapy needs and overall, improve long-term oncological outcomes.

In this research project, the TIVITA® Tissue system, a CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) Push-broom Scanning Hyperspectral Camera device, designed for real-time tissue assessment, will be employed. This CE (Conformité Européenne) certified device can provide 640x480 pixel images with a spectral range of 500 to 1000 nm and a spectral resolution of 5nm. The illumination system consists in six 20 W halogen spotlights (OSRAM GmbH, Munich, Germany). Each measurement takes approximately 7 seconds with a measured area up to 20-30 cm (wide enough for a whole prostate specimen).

Study Type

Study Type

Describes the nature of a clinical study. Study types include interventional studies (also called clinical trials), observational studies (including patient registries), and expanded access.
Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

Enrollment

The number of participants in a clinical study. The "anticipated" enrollment is the target number of participants that the researchers need for the study.
26

Phase

Phase

The stage of a clinical trial studying a drug or biological product, based on definitions developed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The phase is based on the study's objective, the number of participants, and other characteristics. There are five phases: Early Phase 1 (formerly listed as Phase 0), Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, and Phase 4. Not Applicable is used to describe trials without FDA-defined phases, including trials of devices or behavioral interventions.
  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Contact

The name and contact information for the person who can answer enrollment questions for a clinical study. Each location where the study is being conducted may also have a specific contact, who may be better able to answer those questions.

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • Switzerland
    • Canton of Geneva
      • Geneva, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, 1205
        • Recruiting
        • Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève - Dept de Chirurgie - Service d'Urologie
        • Contact:
        • Contact:
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Massimo Valerio, Prof Dr med
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Jean-Christophe Tille, MD
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Oliver Windisch, MD
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Michele Diana, Prof Dr med
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Doron Merkler, Prof Dr med
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Mario Kreutzfeldt, MD
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Andrew Janawczyk, Prof Dr med
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Vincent Benard, Resident
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Christian Lovis, Prof Dr med
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Mina Bjelogrlic, PhD

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

The key requirements that people who want to participate in a clinical study must meet or the characteristics they must have. Eligibility criteria consist of both inclusion criteria (which are required for a person to participate in the study) and exclusion criteria (which prevent a person from participating). Types of eligibility criteria include whether a study accepts healthy volunteers, has age or age group requirements, or is limited by sex.

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Histological diagnosis (biopsy) of Pca
  • Prostate volume < 100 cm3 (measured on preoperative MRI) for a smooth acquisition with the hyperspectral device
  • Capable of forming his own views

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Unwilling to participate.
  • Inability to follow study procedures, for example due to language problems, psychological disorders, dementia, etc.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Diagnostic
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Participant Group / Arm

A group or subgroup of participants in a clinical trial that receives a specific intervention/treatment, or no intervention, according to the trial's protocol.
Intervention / Treatment

Intervention / Treatment

A process or action that is the focus of a clinical study. Interventions include drugs, medical devices, procedures, vaccines, and other products that are either investigational or already available. Interventions can also include noninvasive approaches, such as education or modifying diet and exercise.
Experimental: Participants with prostate cancer undergoing robot-assisted prostatectomy. HyperSpectral imaging.

One visit related to the research protocol which consists in the information consultation during which the participant receives detailed oral and written information.

RAPR (day 0) is performed according to standard practice and is not part of the research-specific procedure.

The study is then based solely on ex-vivo analysis.
Procedure: HyperSpectral imaging acquisition of ex-vivo prostate specimen prior formalin fixation (fresh acquisition)..

The study specific specimen handling consists in a multi-Angle HSI Image Acquisition before routine pathology. To enhance the co-registration between the two modalities, a black-ink may be applied on the ex-vivo specimen based on a MRI suspicious region of extra-prostatic extension (EPE Grade ≥ 2).

This procedure follows prior robust registration work between ex-vivo HSI and histology evaluation. The identification of this region will rely on the standard pre-operative MRI review already performed as part of routine care within our prostate cancer center before each radical prostatectomy.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, the planned outcome measure that is the most important for evaluating the effect of an intervention/treatment. Most clinical studies have one primary outcome measure, but some have more than one.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Tumor extent
Time Frame: HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Dice similarity coefficient between HSI-derived and histopathology spatial overlap between the HSI tumor map and co-registered histopathology
HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7

Secondary Outcome Measures

Secondary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, a planned outcome measure that is not as important as the primary outcome measure for evaluating the effect of an intervention but is still of interest. Most clinical studies have more than one secondary outcome measure.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Boundary delineation
Time Frame: HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Normalized surface distance between HSI-derived andhistopathological tumor contours. Contour agreement
HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Region overlap
Time Frame: HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Jaccard index between HSI-derived and histopathological tumor masks intersection over union
HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Foreground discrimination
Time Frame: HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Pixel-wise sensitivity of HSI for tumor classification. Proportion of histologically tumor-positive pixels classified as tumor
HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Background discrimination
Time Frame: HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Pixel-wise specificity of HSI for tumor classification . Proportion of histologically non-tumor pixels classified as non-tumor
HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Overall agreement:
Time Frame: HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Pixel-wise accuracy of HSI for tumor classification. Proportion of evaluated pixels correctly classified, histopathology as reference
HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Clinical workflow
Time Frame: HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery)
HSI acquisition time
HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery)
Computational runtime
Time Frame: HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery)
Mean model inference time per hyperspectral image
HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery)

Other Outcome Measures

Other Outcome Measures

For clinical trials, a planned measurement described in the protocol that is used to determine the effect of an intervention/treatment on participants. For observational studies, a measurement or observation that is used to describe patterns of diseases or traits, or associations with exposures, risk factors, or treatment. Types of outcome measures include primary outcome measure and secondary outcome measure.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Surgical margins
Time Frame: HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7
Diagnostic accuracy of HSI for detection of histologically positive margins
HSI acquisition on Day 0 (day of surgery); reference histopathological assessment on postoperative Days 7

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Sponsor

The organization or person who initiates the study and who has authority and control over the study.
Massimo Valerio

Investigators

Investigators

A researcher involved in a clinical study. Related terms include site principal investigator, site sub-investigator, study chair, study director, and study principal investigator.
  • Principal Investigator: Massimo Valerio, HUG

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

Study Start

The actual date on which the first participant was enrolled in a clinical study. The "anticipated" study start date is the date that the researchers think will be the study start date.
August 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

Primary Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention to collect final data for the primary outcome measure. Whether the clinical study ended according to the protocol or was terminated does not affect this date. For clinical studies with more than one primary outcome measure with different completion dates, this term refers to the date on which data collection is completed for all the primary outcome measures. The "anticipated" primary completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the primary completion date for the study.
August 31, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

Study Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention/treatment to collect final data for the primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, and adverse events (that is, the last participant's last visit). The "anticipated" study completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the study completion date.
December 31, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

First Submitted

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submitted a study record to ClinicalTrials.gov. There is typically a delay of a few days between the first submitted date and the record's availability on ClinicalTrials.gov (the first posted date).
August 31, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submits a study record that is consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. The sponsor or investigator may need to revise and submit a study record one or more times before NLM's QC review criteria are met. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
September 14, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

First Posted

The date on which the study record was first available on ClinicalTrials.gov after National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review has concluded. There is typically a delay of a few days between the date the study sponsor or investigator submitted the study record and the first posted date.
September 17, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

Last Update Posted

The most recent date on which changes to a study record were made available on ClinicalTrials.gov. There may be a delay between when the changes were submitted to ClinicalTrials.gov by the study's sponsor or investigator (the last update submitted date) and the last update posted date.
September 17, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator submitted changes to a study record that are consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
September 14, 2026

Last Verified

Last Verified

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator confirmed the information about a clinical study on ClinicalTrials.gov as accurate and current. If a study with a recruitment status of recruiting; not yet recruiting; or active, not recruiting has not been confirmed within the past 2 years, the study's recruitment status is shown as unknown.
September 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

Other Study ID Numbers

Identifiers or ID numbers other than the NCT number that are assigned to a clinical study by the study's sponsor, funders, or others. These numbers may include unique identifiers from other trial registries and National Institutes of Health grant numbers.
  • 2026-00595

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

Exploratory study with a small number of participants.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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