Significance: Optical coherence tomography (OCT) offers high spatial resolution and contrast for imaging intraoral structures, yet few studies have investigated its clinical feasibility for dental plaque and gingiva imaging in vivo. Furthermore, the accessibility is often limited to anterior teeth due to bulky imaging systems and probes.
Aim: A custom-designed, handheld probe-based, spectral-domain OCT system with an interchangeable attachment was developed to assess dental plaque and gingival health in a clinical setting.
Approach: Healthy volunteers and subjects with gingivitis and sufficient plaque were recruited. The handheld OCT system was operated by trained dental hygienists to acquire images of dental plaque and gingiva at various locations and after one-week use of oral hygiene products.
Results: The handheld OCT can access premolars, first molars, and lingual sides of teeth to visualize the plaque distribution. OCT intensity-based texture analysis revealed lower intensity from selected sites in subjects with gingivitis. The distribution of the dental plaque after one-week use of the oral hygiene products was compared, showing the capability of OCT as a longitudinal tracking tool.
Conclusions: OCT has a strong potential to display and assess dental plaque and gingiva in a clinical setting. Meanwhile, technological challenges remain to perform systematic longitudinal tracking and comparative analyses.
Influenced by both the intrinsic viscoelasticity of the tissue constituents and the time-evolved redistribution of fluid within the tissue, the biomechanical response of skin can reflect not only localized pathology but also systemic physiology of an individual. While clinical diagnosis of skin pathologies typically relies on visual inspection and manual palpation, a more objective and quantitative approach for tissue characterization is highly desirable. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an interferometry-based imaging modality that enables in vivo assessment of cross-sectional tissue morphology with micron-scale resolution, which surpasses those of most standard clinical imaging tools, such as ultrasound imaging and magnetic resonance imaging. This pilot study investigates the feasibility of characterizing the biomechanical response of in vivo human skin using OCT. OCT-based quantitative metrics were developed and demonstrated on the human subject data, where a significant difference between deformed and nondeformed skin was revealed. Additionally, the quantified postindentation recovery results revealed differences between aged (adult) and young (infant) skin. These suggest that OCT has the potential to quantitatively assess the mechanically perturbed skin as well as distinguish different physiological conditions of the skin, such as changes with age or disease.
Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have been utilized in magnetic hyperthermia to treat solid tumors. Under an appropriate AC magnetic field, energy can be transferred to the MNPs to heat up the intended tissue target while sparing non-targeted healthy tissue. However, a sensitive monitoring technique for the dose of MNP thermal therapy is desirable in order to prevent over-treatment and collateral injury.
Typical hyperthermia dosimetry often relies on changes in imaging properties or temperature measurements based on the thermal distribution. Alternative dosimetric indicators can include the biomechanical properties of the tissue, reflecting the changes due to protein denaturation, coagulation, and tissue dehydration during hyperthermia treatments. Tissue stiffness can be probed by elastography modalities including MRI, ultrasound imaging, and optical coherence elastography (OCE), with OCE showing the highest displacement sensitivity (tens of nanometers). Magnetomotive optical coherence elastography (MM-OCE) is one type of OCE that utilizes MNPs as internal force transducers to probe the tissue stiffness. Therefore, we examined the feasibility of evaluating the hyperthermia dose based on the elasticity changes revealed by MM-OCE.
Superparamagnetic MNPs were applied to ex vivo tissue specimens for both magnetic hyperthermia and MM-OCE experiments, where temperature and elastic modulus were obtained. A correlation between temperature rise and measured stiffness was observed. In addition, we found that with repetitive sequential treatments, tissue stiffness increased, while temperature rise remained relatively constant. These results potentially suggest that MM-OCE could indicate the irreversible changes the tissue undergoes during thermal therapy, which supports the idea for MM-OCE-based hyperthermia dosage control in future applications.
Biomechanical properties of tissues have been utilized for disease detection, diagnosis, and progression, however they have not been extensively utilized for therapy dosimetry.
Magnetic hyperthermia aims to kill cells and ablate tumors using magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) either injected in or targeted to tumors. Upon application of an appropriate AC magnetic field, MNPs can heat target tissue while sparing non-targeted healthy tissue. However, a sensitive monitoring technique for the dose of magnetic hyperthermia is needed to prevent over-treatment and collateral injury.
During hyperthermia treatments, the viscoelastic properties of tissues are altered due to protein denaturation, coagulation, and tissue dehydration, making these properties candidates for dosimetry. Magnetomotive optical coherence elastography (MM-OCE) utilizes MNPs as internal force transducers to probe the biomechanical properties of tissues. Therefore, we aim to evaluate the hyperthermia dose based on the elastic changes revealed by MM-OCE.
In this study, MNPs embedded in tissues were utilized for both hyperthermia and MM-OCE measurements. Tissue temperature and elastic modulus were obtained, where the elastic modulus was extracted from the resonance frequency detected by MM-OCE. Results showed a correlation between stiffness and temperature change following treatment. To investigate the thermal-dose-dependent changes, intervals of hyperthermia treatment were repeatedly performed on the same tissue sequentially, interspersed with MM-OCE. With increasing times of treatment, tissue stiffness increased, while temperature rise remained relatively constant. These results suggest that MM-OCE may potentially identify reversible and irreversible tissue changes during thermal therapy, supporting the use of MM-OCE for dosimetric control of hyperthermia in future applications.
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