Fitting Optical Diagnostics to the Surgical Workflow

In this segment of a video interview recorded at SciX, Jürgen Popp, who is a Scientific Director of the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT) in Jena, Germany, and a professor at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, describes how his team has brought Raman spectroscopy into the operating room through a collaboration with the head and neck surgery department at Jena University Hospital.

Before each operation, Popp’s team turns on and calibrates the system so it is ready when the surgeon arrives. Surgeons then proceed as usual, performing their standard tests, taking biopsies, and removing the tumor. As part of that process, they use the Raman probe to help locate the tumor border.

Popp explained in our interview with him that surgeons need to learn a few new skills: recognizing what a good Raman spectrum looks like, handling the probe properly, and avoiding stray ambient light, which interferes with Raman measurements. Software tools could eventually take over some of the spectral quality control. The learning curve has been short, he explained; surgeons initially needed approximately 10 minutes to obtain a good spectrum and now do so in about one minute.

The one workflow change Popp anticipates is the elimination of frozen section biopsies. Currently, after tumor removal, surgeons take biopsies from the surrounding tissue, and at a hospital like Jena’s, frozen section analysis can be performed during surgery. That analysis takes at least 30 minutes and is less accurate, Popp notes, so residual tumor can be missed and only found later in the pathology lab, requiring the patient to return. With the Raman probe, conventional biopsies would still be taken, but surgeons could rely on the spectra to decide where to cut and which tissue to preserve.

Popp stresses that optical techniques must fit into existing clinical workflows to be adopted. Practical requirements matter too: because the probes are reusable, they must withstand sterilization’s heat and chemicals and meet regulatory requirements—an engineering challenge his team found demanding but has solved.

You can stay up to date with all our coverage of the SciX Conference here: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/conferences/scix.

Further Reading

(1) Popp, J.; Workman, J., Jr.; Wetzel, W. Jürgen Popp on Bringing Raman Diagnostics From the Laboratory to the Clinic. Spectroscopy Online, 2026. https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/jurgen-popp-on-bringing-raman-diagnostics-from-the-laboratory-to-the-clinic (accessed October 15, 2026).