Marianne Abouyared

About

Marianne Abouyared is a pioneering surgeon-scientist whose work sits at the intersection of head and neck oncology and advanced biophotonics. Her primary research focuses on developing real-time, label-free imaging techniques—specifically Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLIm)—to improve the precision of cancer surgery. Her major contribution is the integration of machine learning with FLIm to enable intraoperative margin assessment during oral, oropharyngeal, and transoral robotic surgeries. In her landmark 2020 study (88 citations), she demonstrated FLIm’s diagnostic ability across 53 patients, analyzing nearly 68,000 point measurements to distinguish cancerous from healthy tissue. She further advanced the field by applying FLIm to detect p16+ oropharyngeal carcinomas of unknown primary origin (2022, 27 citations) and by developing anatomy-specific classification models for head and neck cancer (2023, 17 citations). Her work directly addresses the critical challenge of achieving complete tumor resection while sparing healthy tissue. Dr. Abouyared’s research promises to transform surgical guidance, reducing recurrence rates and improving patient outcomes in head and neck oncology.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Intraoperative Margin Assessment in Oral and Oropharyngeal Cancer Using Label-Free Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging and Machine Learning

   88 citations · 2020
2. 2
   Intraoperative delineation of p16+ oropharyngeal carcinoma of unknown primary origin with fluorescence lifetime imaging: Preliminary report

   27 citations · 2022
3. 3
   Anatomy-Specific Classification Model Using Label-Free FLIm to Aid Intraoperative Surgical Guidance of Head and Neck Cancer

   17 citations · 2023
4. 4
   Surgical Options for Locally Advanced Oropharyngeal Cancer

   15 citations · 2019
5. 5
   FLIm-Based in Vivo Classification of Residual Cancer in the Surgical Cavity During Transoral Robotic Surgery

   3 citations · 2023

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links