Multimodal diagnosis and visualisation of oncologic pathologies

Abstract

The combined application of optical coherence tomo graphy, Raman and autofluorescence spectroscopy of biotissues for the analysis of human malignant neoplasms is demonstrated. Rapid investigation of vast biotissue regions (at the scale of entire organs) is possible using the autofluorescence response. After selec tion of possible zones of pathologies one can visualise the neoplasm topology in the zone of interest with micron precision by using opti cal coherence tomo graphy. In the case of suspecting the malignancy the analysis of the biotissue Raman spectrum is carried out that allows identification of the neoplasm type with the sensitivity and specificity ~85 %. An experimental scheme is proposed with the combined use of the abovementioned methods, which is a prototype of the medical system for complex analysis of neoplasms.

Optical Coherence Tomography for Quantitative Diagnosis in Nasopharyngeal carcinoma

“…As a rule, the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of OCT doesn't exceed 75%-85% for different types of cancer. Moreover, the high sensitivity (about 85%) is accompanied with low specificity (60%-70%) [13] .…”

Backscattering spectroscopy for assessing skin tumor

“…Due to small cross section the Raman scattering requires long signal acquisition time for random noise elimination, which hampers its mass application without combining with optical imaging methods [11]. As a rule, the fluorescence is excited with UV radiation [12,13], because the strongest absorption lines of natural fluorochromes are in the UV region.…”