Significance: Imaging needles consist of highly miniaturized focusing optics encased within a hypodermic needle. The needles may be inserted tens of millimeters into tissue and have the potential to visualize diseased cells well beyond the penetration depth of optical techniques applied externally. Multimodal imaging needles acquire multiple types of optical signals to differentiate cell types. However, their use has not previously been demonstrated with live cells.
Aim: We demonstrate the ability of a multimodal imaging needle to differentiate cell types through simultaneous optical coherence tomography (OCT) and fluorescence imaging.
Approach: We characterize the performance of a multimodal imaging needle. This is paired with a fluorescent analog of the therapeutic drug, tamoxifen, which enables cell-specific fluorescent labeling of estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer cells. We perform simultaneous OCT and fluorescence in situ imaging on MCF-7 ER+ breast cancer cells and MDA-MB-231 ER− cells. Images are compared against unlabeled control samples and correlated with standard confocal microscopy images.
Results: We establish the feasibility of imaging live cells with these miniaturized imaging probes by showing clear differentiation between cancerous cells.
Conclusions: Imaging needles have the potential to aid in the detection of specific cancer cells within solid tissue.
We present a miniaturized handheld OCT probe (9 grams weight), approximately the size of a small pen (10 mm x 140 mm), developed for use inside a patient’s mouth for examination of the oral mucosa. The probe operates in common-path mode and uses a magnetic scanning system to actuate a lensed fibre, achieving 50 B-scans per second. The system is demonstrated with OCT imaging of the buccal and alveolar mucosa of six patients with oral lichen planus (OLP) during clinical routine examination, and showed pathological changes in the tissue microarchitecture.
We present a parametric optical coherence tomography (OCT) technique to improve contrast between malignant and healthy non-neoplastic tissue. The technique incorporates a fully automated method to extract tissue attenuation characteristics. Results are represented visually as a parametric en face image, where the parameter used for contrast is indicative of the relative optical attenuation coefficient of the tissue. We present the first parametric OCT images of human lymph nodes containing malignant cells, and demonstrate improved tissue contrast over en face OCT images.
This work presents a novel tissue-mimicking phantom for use in a range of optical coherence tomography (OCT) experiments. Such phantoms are critical in the development and assessment of new OCT techniques, but no previously published phantoms have become universally accepted. We present the first description of a phantom based on a fibrin matrix, which improves key attributes of previously published methods. It provides a biocompatible, optically transparent scaffold in which to incorporate organic and/or inorganic optical scattering materials. Its fabrication time is markedly shorter than many common phantoms, and its lifetime is longer than other biocompatible phantoms. The potential of fibrin phantoms incorporating IntralipidTM to introduce uniform optical scattering is demonstrated. The measured attenuation coefficient as a function of Intralipid concentration confirms the ability to control optical scattering. A bilayer phantom with distinct optical scattering in each layer is also presented.
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