Research progress on the application of optical coherence tomography in the field of oncology

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive imaging technique which has become the “gold standard” for diagnosis in the field of ophthalmology. However, in contrast to the eye, nontransparent tissues exhibit a high degree of optical scattering and absorption, resulting in a limited OCT imaging depth. And the progress made in the past decade in OCT technology have made it possible to image nontransparent tissues with high spatial resolution at large (up to 2mm) imaging depth. On the one hand, OCT can be used in a rapid, noninvasive way to detect diseased tissues, organs, blood vessels or glands. On the other hand, it can also identify the optical characteristics of suspicious parts in the early stage of the disease, which is of great significance for the early diagnosis of tumor diseases. Furthermore, OCT imaging has been explored for imaging tumor cells and their dynamics, and for the monitoring of tumor responses to treatments. This review summarizes the recent advances in the OCT area, which application in oncological diagnosis and treatment in different types: (1) superficial tumors:OCT could detect microscopic information on the skin’s surface at high resolution and has been demonstrated to help diagnose common skin cancers; (2) gastrointestinal tumors: OCT can be integrated into small probes and catheters to image the structure of the stomach wall, enabling the diagnosis and differentiation of gastrointestinal tumors and inflammation; (3) deep tumors: with the rapid development of OCT imaging technology, it has shown great potential in the diagnosis of deep tumors such in brain tumors, breast cancer, bladder cancer, and lung cancer.

Corneal optical density: Structural basis, measurements, influencing factors, and roles in refractive surgery

“…OCT is a high-resolution optical imaging technique that utilizes near-infrared light waves to image the microstructures of different tissue types ( Yang et al, 2022 ). It was first applied for in vivo measurements of the human retinal structure by Swanson et al (1993) .…”

Depth‐resolved method for attenuation coefficient calculation from optical coherence tomography data for improved biological structure visualization

“…Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is one of the most promising, innovative, and rapidly emerging intraoperative imaging modalities. Over the past decades, this technology has been successfully applied in various fields of medicine from ophthalmology to endovascular surgery [1][2][3][4]. OCT is most often used to visualize layered biological objects such as the retina, mucous membranes, and skin.…”

Melanoma and Nevi Subtype Histopathological Characterization with Optical Coherence Tomography

“…To respond to this need, the scientific community has studied different imaging techniques, wherein optical coherent tomography (OCT) stands out because of its capacity to provide an overview of tissue morphological architecture and lateral lesion delimitation. Various works studying the application of OCT in the diagnosis of melanoma have been published in the latest years, but as recent review studies confirm [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ], there is still a lack of agreement on proposals and differential criteria on images’ visual interpretation, and further studies with more number of samples are still necessary. The main weaknesses of OCT that prevent its use in clinical practice are the limited view of deep lesions, the misleading diagnosis of benign and malignant lesions (amelanotic melanoma diagnosed as basal cell carcinoma), and the lack of clinicians with training on image interpretation.…”