Differentiation of oral precancerous stages with optical coherence tomography based on the evaluation of optical scattering properties of oral mucosae

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been demonstrated to be a powerful tool for noninvasive, real-time oral cancer diagnosis. However, in previous reports, OCT has still been found to be difficult to use in the diagnosis of oral precancerous stages, including mild dysplasia and moderate dysplasia. In clinical applications, early diagnosis and treatment of oral cancer can greatly improve the survival rate. Therefore, in this study, we propose a new approach to differentiate the oral precancerous stages based on the evaluation of the optical scattering properties of the epithelial layer, which is where the dysplastic cells start to develop in the precancerous stages. Instead of using exponential decay fitting to evaluate the scattering properties of mucosal tissues based on the Beer–Lambert law, linear fitting of the OCT depth intensity is used to evaluate the scattering properties of normal and dysplastic cells. From the statistical results of the linear fitting, the slope, a, can be an effective indicator to discriminate healthy mucosa and moderate dysplasia when an a value equal to zero is the threshold value, and the intercept, b, can be used to differentiate healthy and dysplastic mucosae, as well as mild and moderate dysplasia, when b values of 0.15 and 0.18 are used as the threshold values, respectively. Furthermore, this approach is also applied to the determination of the safe margin between normal and abnormal mucosae, making it possible to provide real-time, in vivo inspection during oral maxillofacial surgery.

[1]  A. Fercher,et al.  Performance of fourier domain vs. time domain optical coherence tomography. , 2003, Optics express.

[2]  Wanrong Gao,et al.  Performance of single-scattering model versus multiple-scattering model in the determination of optical properties of biological tissue with optical coherence tomography. , 2010, Applied optics.

[3]  C. Chiang,et al.  Decreased expression of Ep-CAM protein is significantly associated with the progression and prognosis of oral squamous cell carcinomas in Taiwan. , 2008, Journal of oral pathology & medicine : official publication of the International Association of Oral Pathologists and the American Academy of Oral Pathology.

[4]  R. Leitgeb,et al.  Visualization of microvasculature by dual-beam phase-resolved Doppler optical coherence tomography. , 2011, Optics express.

[5]  J. Duker,et al.  Ultrahigh-resolution, high-speed, Fourier domain optical coherence tomography and methods for dispersion compensation. , 2004, Optics express.

[6]  Yue Xiu-li,et al.  Multifunctional magnetic nanoparticles for magnetic resonance image-guided photothermal therapy for cancer , 2014 .

[7]  S. Yun,et al.  High-speed spectral-domain optical coherence tomography at 1.3 mum wavelength. , 2003, Optics express.

[8]  Adrian Glasser,et al.  Monitoring of glucose permeability in monkey skin in vivo using Optical Coherence Tomography , 2009, Journal of biophotonics.

[9]  Chih-Jen Yu,et al.  High speed interferometric ellipsometer. , 2008, Optics express.

[10]  Vanderlei Salvador Bagnato,et al.  Analysis of the combined effect of lasers of different wavelengths for PDT outcome using 600, 630, and 660 nm , 2011 .

[11]  H. H. Zhu,et al.  Pilot study on early detection of dental demineralization based on laser induced fluorescence , 2010 .

[12]  Anastasia L. Sowers,et al.  Evaluation of Radiation-Induced Oral Mucositis by Optical Coherence Tomography , 2005, Clinical Cancer Research.

[13]  Kirill V. Larin,et al.  Speckle variance OCT imaging of the vasculature in live mammalian embryos , 2011 .

[14]  Meng-Tsan Tsai,et al.  Defect detection and property evaluation of indium tin oxide conducting glass using optical coherence tomography. , 2011, Optics express.

[15]  Juergen Lademann,et al.  Application of laser scan microscopy in vivo for wound healing characterization , 2010 .

[16]  R Marchesini,et al.  Extinction and absorption coefficients and scattering phase functions of human tissues in vitro. , 1989, Applied optics.

[17]  Chenyang Xu,et al.  Characterization of atherosclerosis plaques by measuring both backscattering and attenuation coefficients in optical coherence tomography. , 2008, Journal of biomedical optics.

[18]  Guannan Chen,et al.  Detecting the imaging characteristics of colorectal carcinoma invading the muscularis propria with multiphoton microscopy , 2012 .

[19]  E. Sturgis,et al.  Squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck in nonsmokers: clinical and biologic characteristics and implications for management , 2001, Current opinion in oncology.

[20]  Zhongping Chen,et al.  Second harmonic optical coherence tomography , 2004, The 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[21]  Valery V. Tuchin,et al.  Monitoring of blood proteins glycation by refractive index and spectral measurements , 2008 .

[22]  Tianheng Wang,et al.  Optical scattering coefficient estimated by optical coherence tomography correlates with collagen content in ovarian tissue. , 2011, Journal of biomedical optics.

[23]  B. Wong,et al.  In vivo optical coherence tomography of the human oral cavity and oropharynx. , 2006, Archives of otolaryngology--head & neck surgery.

[24]  Callum M. Macdonald,et al.  Backscattering of circular polarized light from a disperse random medium influenced by optical clearing , 2011 .

[25]  Igor Meglinski,et al.  Application of optical coherence tomography for imaging of scaffold structure and micro-flows characterization , 2008 .

[26]  Hsiang-Chieh Lee,et al.  Effective indicators for diagnosis of oral cancer using optical coherence tomography. , 2008, Optics express.

[27]  B Palcic,et al.  Optical properties of normal and carcinomatous bronchial tissue. , 1994, Applied optics.

[28]  Karen Willcox,et al.  Kinetics and kinematics for translational motions in microgravity during parabolic flight. , 2009, Aviation, space, and environmental medicine.

[29]  Teresa C. Chen,et al.  Ultrahigh-resolution high-speed retinal imaging using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography. , 2004, Optics express.

[30]  Rebecca Richards-Kortum,et al.  Determination of epithelial tissue scattering coefficient using confocal microscopy , 2003 .

[31]  Rammohan V. Maikala,et al.  Modified Beer's Law – historical perspectives and relevance in near-infrared monitoring of optical properties of human tissue , 2010 .

[32]  C. Kurachi,et al.  Femtosecond light distribution at skin and liver of rats: analysis for use in optical diagnostics , 2010 .

[33]  Huajiang Wei,et al.  Quantifying glucose permeability and enhanced light penetration in ex vivo human normal and cancerous esophagus tissues with optical coherence tomography , 2010 .

[34]  S. Yun,et al.  High-speed optical frequency-domain imaging. , 2003, Optics express.

[35]  Ines Latka,et al.  Towards multimodal nonlinear optical tomography – experimental methodology , 2011 .

[36]  Zhongping Chen,et al.  In vivo Imaging of Oral Mucositis in an Animal Model Using Optical Coherence Tomography and Optical Doppler Tomography , 2007, Clinical Cancer Research.

[37]  J. Fujimoto,et al.  Three-dimensional endomicroscopy using optical coherence tomography , 2007 .

[38]  I. Meglinski,et al.  Plant photonics: application of optical coherence tomography to monitor defects and rots in onion , 2010 .

[39]  Huajiang Wei,et al.  Enhancement of permeability of glycerol with ultrasound in human normal and cancer breast tissues in vitro using optical coherence tomography , 2010 .

[40]  Qin Huang,et al.  Three-dimensional endomicroscopy of the human colon using optical coherence tomography. , 2009, Optics express.

[41]  Hsiang-Chieh Lee,et al.  Differentiating oral lesions in different carcinogenesis stages with optical coherence tomography. , 2009, Journal of biomedical optics.

[42]  Lingfeng Yu,et al.  Doppler variance imaging for three-dimensional retina and choroid angiography. , 2010, Journal of biomedical optics.

[43]  T. Yatagai,et al.  In vivo high-contrast imaging of deep posterior eye by 1-microm swept source optical coherence tomography and scattering optical coherence angiography. , 2007, Optics express.

[44]  A. Gomes,et al.  Determination of dental decay rates with optical coherence tomography , 2009 .

[45]  Y. K. Chen,et al.  Primary oral squamous cell carcinoma: an analysis of 703 cases in southern Taiwan. , 1999, Oral oncology.

[46]  Dirk Faber,et al.  Functional optical coherence tomography : spatially resolved measurements of optical properties , 2005 .

[47]  Bingqing Wang,et al.  Birefringence measurement of the retinal nerve fiber layer by swept source polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography , 2011, Optics express.

[48]  Hui Ma,et al.  Transverse flow velocity quantification using optical coherence tomography with correlation , 2011 .

[49]  P. Andersen,et al.  OCT imaging of skin cancer and other dermatological diseases , 2009, Journal of biophotonics.

[50]  Hsiang-Chieh Lee,et al.  Delineation of an oral cancer lesion with swept-source optical coherence tomography. , 2008, Journal of biomedical optics.

[51]  Meng-Tsan Tsai,et al.  Observations of cardiac beating behaviors of wild‐type and mutant Drosophilae with optical coherence tomography , 2011, Journal of biophotonics.