Ultrahigh resolution optical coherence tomography for detecting tissue abnormalities of the oral and laryngeal mucosa: A preliminary study

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an imaging technology that provides cross-sectional images without biopsy of subsurface tissue structure at approximately 10 micrometer resolution to a depth of 1,5 mm using backscattered light from the tissue. OCT has shown promising in imaging normal upper airways and in various disorders.

The use of OCT to image the upper airways during diagnosis and treatment of a vast array of disorders continues to develop along with innovative surgical techniques, of patients in anesthesia. Monitoring the benign cellular and molecular events resulting in e.g. edema, in the clinic online is of great interest.

There is a need to get information in the clinic about the normal histology of functioning mucosa compared with disorders causing edema especially at the inflammatory process level. The main interesting point is to find out whether it is related to infection, acid reflux, allergy or a fourth condition.

Long-range OCT using Doppler OCT is providing useful clinical applications for diagnostic and therapeutic laryngeal procedures of the vocal folds (1). Till now a probe for oral examination of the mucosa with ultrahigh resolution OCT has been established.