Polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) for bronchoscopic airway smooth muscle detection in bronchial thermoplasty treated asthma patients
To the editor, 79 Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by airway remodeling (AR), 80 including thickening of airway smooth muscle (ASM) as a key element of this alteration (1). 81 Severe asthma patients may benefit from bronchial thermoplasty (BT), an endoscopic 82 treatment that targets structural AR and induces ASM reduction (2). Assessment of AR is 83 critical to evaluate the impact of BT and might provide a tool for BT patient selection. 84 Polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) has been proposed as a 85 minimally invasive diagnostic method to assess ASM mass as alternative to focal ...
