Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy for accurate margin assessment in breast-conserving surgeries: importance of an optimal number of fibers

During breast-conserving surgeries, it remains challenging to accomplish adequate surgical margins. We investigated different numbers of fibers for fiber-optic diffuse reflectance spectroscopy to differentiate tumorous breast tissue from healthy tissue ex vivo up to 2 mm from the margin. Using a machine-learning classification model, the optimal performance was obtained using at least three emitting fibers (Matthew's correlation coefficient (MCC) of 0.73), which was significantly higher compared to the performance of using a single-emitting fiber (MCC of 0.48). The percentage of correctly classified tumor locations varied from 75% to 100% depending on the tumor percentage, the tumor-margin distance and the number of fibers.