The below Table provides some information about these four types of margin detection probes. The surgeon can select each of them based on their properties, performance, and application.
| Technology | Tested Margin numbers/patients | Human in vivo/In vitro tests | The type of cancer tested | Declared Sensitivity /specificity | Diagnosis declaration time | The cost of the test | The cost of the device |
| Mass Spec Pen
[1], [2] |
253 patients | In vitro and in vivo on the tumor side margins | healthy and diseased thyroid, parathyroid, lymph node, breast, pancreatic, and bile duct tissues | 96%-96% | 10 sec. | 100$ | 150,000$ |
| Margin probe
[3] |
365 measurement sites | In vitro on the tumor side margins | Breast | 67% – 60% | 1 to 5 sec. | 995$ | 50,000$ |
| Confocal Laser Endomicroscopy (CLE) [4] | 709 patients | Used by endoscopy channels to get the point and image | patients with Gastrointestinal and Pancreatobiliary diseases | 89%-75% | Real-time | Not Found | Not Found |
| CDP | 8000 human in-vivo clinical breast samples from more than 600 patients | In vitro and in vivo on the cavity side margins | Breast | 93% – 91% | 15 sec. | Each head probe 20$ (100$ for each patient) | 80,000 $ |
[1] J. Zhang et al., “Nondestructive tissue analysis for ex vivo and in vivo cancer diagnosis using a handheld mass spectrometry system,” Sci. Transl. Med., vol, 9, no. 406, p. eaan3968, 2017.
[2] J. Zhang et al., “Direct molecular analysis of in vivo and freshly excised tissues in human surgeries with the MasSpec Pen technology,” medRxiv, 2020.
[3] LeeVan, Elyse, Be Thi Ho, Sadie Seto, and Jeannie Shen. “Use of MarginProbe as an adjunct to the standard operating procedure does not significantly reduce re-excision rates in breast-conserving surgery.” Breast Cancer Research and Treatment 183 (2020): 145-151.
[4] Pilonis ND, Januszewicz W, di Pietro M. Confocal laser endomicroscopy in gastrointestinal endoscopy: technical aspects and clinical applications. Transl Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2022 Jan 25;7:7.
Apart from the differences in Margin mode, CDP is the only one which can be used in the detection of lymph node involvement in the absence of a frozen section and for non-sentinel lymph nodes based on Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy.
