This project involves an optical device based on spectro-polarimetry to analyze tumor margins during tumor excision.

In conservative surgery, the aim of which is to preserve as much healthy tissue as possible in order to preserve the organ (breast, skin, head and neck, rectum, etc.), the surgeon will aim to take the smallest possible safety margin.

If, after anatomopathological analysis, carried out after the surgery, the margin is determined as positive, i.e. it contains cancer cells, the patient is operated again to remove this part of the tissue. Studies in breast cancer have shown that 40 to 60% of patients require a second or even a third surgical procedure if the analysis of tumour margins cannot be performed during the procedure (under intraoperative conditions).
 
With regard to other approaches developed for this type of extemporaneous analysis, which aim to avoid subsequent operations for patients, the advantage of the Polaris project is that the surgeon can evaluate these margins of exeresis during the operation, in a very short time to limit the extension of the intervention time, with a high resolution and without degrading the tissues to allow subsequent confirmation by systematic pathological analyses.