Category: Gynecology

The University of Arizona received a $276,708 2012 NIH grant to study diagnosis of Ovarian Cancer by Confocal Microendoscopy. The principal Investigator is Arthur Gmitro. This grant is part of a multi-year project that started in 2005 and ends in 2014. Below is a summary of the work. The objective of this research is to further develop and clinically validate a real-time multispectral confocal microendoscope for in vivo diagnosis of ovarian cancer. The confocal microendoscope is a new type of instrument for visualizing tissue at the cellular level and has shown great promise for performing optical biopsy. Confocal microendoscopy ...

Ovarian cancer is difficult to diagnose in its early stages because symptoms often don’t manifest themselves until the disease has spread, and also because there is no effective screening method. Researchers at the University of Connecticut and the University of Southern California (U.S.A.) have developed a multi-mode imaging probe that could examine ovarian tissue via minimally invasive surgery (Biomed. Opt. Exp. 2, 2551; doi: 10.1364/ BOE.2.002551). The device built by Quing Zhu and her colleagues integrates optical coherence tomography (OCT), photoacoustic imaging and ultrasound

Optical scattering coefficient from ex-vivo unfixed normal and malignant ovarian tissue was quantitatively extracted by fitting optical coherence tomography (OCT) A-line signals to a single scattering model. 1097 average A-line measurements at a wavelength of 1310nm were performed at 108 sites obtained from 18 ovaries. The average scattering coefficient obtained from normal group consisted of 833 measurements from 88 sites was 2.41 mm-1 (±0.59), while the average coefficient obtained from malignant group consisted of 264 measurements from 20 sites was 1.55 mm-1 (±0.46). Using a threshold of 2 mm-1 for each ovary, a sensitivity of 100 ...

Objective To establish and validate an ex vivo human cervical tissue model for optical coherence tomography (OCT) studies with special emphasis on investigating time dependent structural changes of the epithelium. Methods Four hundred OCT images were taken from 80 unsuspicious and suspicious areas of 18 fresh conisation specimens immediately after resection (0 hour) and 1, 2, 3, and 4 hours, referred to as waiting times in the following, postoperatively and compared to the corresponding histology. For each 2D-OCT-image, a 1D-intensity profile was generated. The profiles were analyzed with respect to systematic differences which may result from different waiting times, employing ...

Background and Objectives The aim of this study was to determine the diagnostic efficacy of backscattering intensity measurements in optical coherence tomography in identifying different grades of cervical intraepithelial dysplasia. Study Design/Materials and Methods OCT images were taken from 153 unsuspicious and suspicious areas of 30 fresh conisation and hysterectomy specimens, evaluated by two blinded investigators using a six-grade classification (normal, inflammation, CIN1, CIN2, CIN3, squamous carcinoma) and later compared to the corresponding histology. Differences between judgments based on either the histology or the OCT images were investigated employing Correspondence Analysis (CA). Further, we explored the extent as to ...

OBJECTIVE: Colposcopy has been used to detect epithelial damage with vaginal microbicides. In animal models, optical coherence tomography provided increased sensitivity over colposcopy in detecting epithelial injury. This randomized, double-blinded, clinical study compared optical coherence tomography to colposcopy for the evaluation of epithelial injury in women using placebo or nonoxynol-9. METHODS: Thirty women aged 18–45 were randomized to use hydroxyethyl cellulose placebo or nonoxynol-9 vaginal gel twice daily for 5.5 days. Imaging with colposcopy and optical coherence tomography was performed before product use, after the last dose, and 1 week later. Colposcopy was graded using standard criteria. Optical ...

Multi-modality imaging involving OCT and one or more additional imaging technologies continues to show very promising results for increasing the diagnostic and interventional guidance capability of biomedical imaging probes. These synergistic effects have been published in numerous papers over the past year. This includes OCT in combination with fluorescence, Raman, NIR, ultrasound, and other technologies. Such approaches have the obvious disadvantage of increasing the cost and complexity of the imaging system but often that burden is offset by significantly increased performance. Recently a group from the University of Connecticut published a paper on a hybrid intraoperative probe that used OCT ...

Optical scattering coefficient from ex vivo unfixed normal and malignant ovarian tissue was quantitatively extracted by fitting optical coherence tomography (OCT) A-line signals to a single scattering model. 1097 average A-line measurements at a wavelength of 1310 nm were performed at 108 sites obtained from 18 ovaries. The average scattering coefficient obtained from the normal tissue group consisted of 833 measurements from 88 sites was 2.41 mm−1 (±0.59), while the average coefficient obtained from the malignant tissue group consisted of 264 measurements from 20 sites was 1.55 mm−1 (±0.46). The malignant ovarian tissue showed ...

Ovarian cancer has the lowest survival rate of the gynecologic cancers because it is predominantly diagnosed in Stages III or IV due to the lack of reliable symptoms, as well as the lack of efficacious screening techniques. Detection before the malignancy spreads or at the early stage would greatly improve the survival and benefit patient health. In this report, we present an integrated optical coherence tomography (OCT), ultrasound (US) and photoacoustic imaging (PAI) prototype endoscopy system for ovarian tissue characterization. The overall diameter of the prototype endoscope is 5 mm which is suitable for insertion through a standard 5-12.5mm ...

Background Prevention of HIV and other STDs using vaginal microbicides must be safe. Colposcopy has not been shown to predict microbicide safety; therefore a more sensitive method is needed in safety evaluations of these vaginal products. The use of optical coherence tomography (OCT) has shown increased sensitivity to tissue injury over colposcopy in animal models. We describe a randomised double blind clinical trial using OCT to detect epithelial changes and injury related to vaginal microbicide use. Methods 30 women aged 18–45 were randomised to use hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) placebo or nonoxynol-9 (N-9) vaginal gel twice daily for 5.5 ...

Researchers from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Ludwig Maximilians University Munich published on the important topic of using OCT for examination of cancerous cervical tissue. Below is a summary of their work.Invasive cancer of the uterine cervix (ICC) is the second most frequent cancer in women worldwide accounting for 10% of all cancer-related deaths in women. Every year approximately 510,000 women are newly diagnosed with ICC and approximately 300,000 women die from the disease. Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) precedes invasive cancer of the uterine cervix. Its detection and treatment can prevent the progression towards ICC ...

Ovarian cancer has the lowest survival rate of the gynecologic cancers because it is predominantly diagnosed in the late stages due to the lack of reliable symptoms and efficacious screening techniques. A novel hybrid intraoperative probe has been developed and evaluated for its potential role in detecting and characterizing ovarian tissue. The hybrid intraoperative dual-modality device consists of multiple scintillating fibers and an optical coherence tomography imaging probe for simultaneously mapping the local activities of 18F-FDG uptake and imaging of local morphological changes of the ovary. Ten patients were recruited to the study and a total of 18 normal, abnormal ...

The study is aimed at developing new methods for diagnosing causes of impairment of female reproductive function. An increase of infertility and chronic pelvic pains syndrome, a growing level of latent diseases of this group, as well as a stably high percentage (up to 25% for infertility and up to 60% for the chronic pelvic pains syndrome) of undetermined origin make this research extremely important. As a complementary technique to laparoscopy we propose to use optical coherence tomography. We have acquired OCT images of different parts of fallopian tubes and pelvic peritoneum and analyzed OCT criteria of unaltered tissues. The ...

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a technique that allows imaging tissue in three spatial dimensions. Such a technique makes it possible to examine the subsurface of the tissue. The depth of penetration into the tissue can be tailored by tuning the wavelength of the light source. While in some cases it is desirable to obtain deep penetration of the sample, when scanning for cancerous changes, it may only be necessary to penetrate the first few hundred micrometres. The use of a shorter wavelength, while decreasing the penetration depth, will improve the resolution of the instrument. While images from OCT systems ...

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal of the gynecologic malignancies. Because ovarian cancer symptoms are subtle and nonspecific, the diagnosis is often delayed until the disease is well advanced. Overall 5-year survival is a rather dismal 50% but can be improved to greater than 90% if the disease is confined to the ovary at the time of diagnosis (generally in fewer than 25% of patients). Effective screening tools are currently not available. Owing to the rather low incidence of the disease in the general population, potential screening tests must provide very high specificity to avoid unnecessary interventions in false-positive cases ...