Fluorescence guided optical coherence tomography for early detection of epithelial neoplasia

Summary form only given. Standard clinical diagnosis of oral cancer rely almost exclusively on the visual examination of tissue followed by pathological determinations of tissue biopsies collected from suspected lesions in the oral cavity and upper digestive-tract. The search for more accurate and less invasive method for rapid screening of epithelial tissue and early detection of malignant tissue transformation has significant appeal. Ideally, a method that maintains the existing visualization approach but utilizing a more sensitive imaging capability, while simultaneously adding a quantitative aspect for non-invasive assessment of tissue, could prove to be an extremely powerful technique for early detection of epithelial neoplasia. We investigated the potential for combination of fluorescence spectroscopy and optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging as a means to detect neoplastic changes in oral cavity tissues. Our goal was to demonstrate that the combined imaging modalities would improve our ability to detect early-stage neoplastic lesions that are not identifiable grossly non-invasively.