Optical coherence-gated imaging in biological tissues

Optical coherent-domain tomography (OCT) uses low-coherence light interference to achieve on-axis optical sectioning and lateral scan for 3D optical imaging in scattering media. Owing to its exceptional resolution of approximately 10 μm and high dynamic range in excess of 100 dB, this technique is potential for the detection of the microstructures in biological tissues. Although not being able to resolve to the cell extent in most biological tissues because of multiple light scattering, it can still provide important diagnostic information for either low- scattering or superficial, high-scattering biological tissues according to our preliminary clinical experiments. In this paper, after showing the influences of multiple scattering effects on imaging contrast, we will present some 2D OCT images for evaluating the effects of laser thermal keratoplasty, then show the images of in vitro porcine bladder and human tongue. These results show that OCT can be developed into a promising means of noninvasive evaluation of laser-tissue effects, e.g. laser coagulation and ablation, in vivo location of superficial lesion and cancerous regions to aid minimum invasive surgery.