Psoralen plus ultraviolet A radiation (PUVA) therapy is a very important clinical treatment of skin diseases such as vitiligo and psoriasis, but associated with an increased risk of skin photodamage, especially photoaging. In this work, optical coherence tomography (OCT), a novel non-invasive imaging technology, was introduced to investigate in vivo the photodamage induced by PUVA qualitatively and quantitatively. Balb/c mouse dorsal skin was treated with 8-methoxypsoralen (8-MOP), and then exposed to UVA radiation. OCT images of the tissues were obtained by an OCT system with a 1310 nm central wavelength. Skin thickness and the attenuation coefficient were extracted from ...

A Fourier domain mode-locked (FDML) fiber laser based on dual-pump fiber optical parametric amplification (FOPA) is proposed and demonstrated. The output spectrum of the proposed FDML fiber laser covers a sweeping wavelength range from 1540.8 to 1559.8 nm with a sweeping frequency of 31.688 kHz. A comparison of two FDML fiber lasers which are based on dual-pump FOPA and one-pump FOPA is also presented. A novel sensing system based on the FDML laser and a fiber Bragg grating, by which the sensing signal can be measured in the time domain instead of the frequency domain, is also ...

Objective . Previous studies have shown that single-frequency impedance measurements could provide useful information about the distance between the neuroprosthesis and the retina. This work investigates the use of impedance spectroscopy in monitoring subretinal implantations of flexible micro-electrode arrays and focuses on determining what is governing impedance profiles. Approach . In this study, we use impedance spectroscopy together with optical coherence tomography imaging and numerical simulation to quantitatively evaluate the constituent elements of measured impedance. Main results . We show the existence of specific impedance spectrum profiles for retinal detection and retinal detachment that are in good agreement with numerical simulations. These simulations ...

In this study, an optical coherence tomography (OCT) system is implemented for the noninvasive characterization of photothermolysis in human skin induced by ablative fractional lasers (AFLs) and non-ablative fractional lasers (NAFLs). With OCT imaging, microthermal zones (MTZs) induced by fractional lasers can be noninvasively visualized, and the size of induced MTZs can be quantitatively evaluated. According to the OCT results, the center region of the induced MTZ corresponds to weaker backscattered intensity after the AFL exposure as a result of tissue volatilization by photon energy. In contrast, after the NAFL exposure, the skin tissue is damaged and coagulated but not ...

We have applied custom-built anterior segment optical coherence tomography based on a 1310 nm center wavelength swept laser source to measure Schlemm's canal (SC) area in the living human eye. A total of 50 healthy volunteers with 100 normal eyes have been measured on the nasal and temporal sides successfully. The statistical results show that there are no significant differences between females and males in respect of SC area (female: 8062.24 μm² ± 1492.304 μm²; male: 7714.52 μm² ± 1439.034 μm²; p = 0.095), and also no significant differences of SC area are ...

Diseased tissue has different optical properties and dynamic behaviors from normal tissue, and this can be exploited for diagnostics and therapeutics. We present a model for simultaneously estimating the optical scattering coefficient and Brownian diffusion coefficient of superficial biological tissue. This theoretical model predicts that the U-quadratic distribution approximates the Lorentzian power spectrum due to the Brownian motion, when the frequency width of integration is much less than the power spectrum linewidth. Furthermore, it shows that the logarithmic intensity of all calculated wavelet frequencies is linearly dependent on the scattering coefficient and the standard deviation of the Doppler frequency shift ...

Previous studies from our group have demonstrated that glucose solution can induce optical clearing enhancement of esophageal tissues with optical coherence tomography (OCT). The aims of this study were to evaluate the optical clearing effects of ultrasound-mediated optical clearing agents (OCAs) and to find more effective methods to distinguish human normal esophageal tissues (NE) and cancerous esophageal tissues (CE). Here we used the OCT technique to investigate the optical attenuation of NE and CE in vitro after treatment with 30% glycerol alone and glycerol combined with ultrasound, respectively. Experimental results showed that the averaged attenuation coefficient of CE was significantly ...

A variant of compressional optical coherence elastography for mapping of the relative stiffness of biological tissues is reported. Unlike conventionally discussed displacement-based (DB) elastography, in which the decrease in the cross-correlation between subsequently obtained images is a negative factor causing errors in the mapping displacement and strain fields, we propose to intentionally use the difference in the correlation stability (CS) for deformed-tissue regions with different stiffnesses. We compare the parameter ranges (in terms of noise-to-signal ratio and strain) in which the conventional DB and CS approaches are operable. It is shown that the CS approach has advantages such as a ...

We proposed Common Path Optical Coherence Tomography (CPOCT) using gold coated conical tip lens fiber with a central wavelength of 1310 nm SLD to improve lateral resolution under the water. We already verified that conical tip lens fiber was good to improve the lateral resolution in CPOCT in air. However, CPOCT using conical tip lens fiber could not be functioning under the water solution because the value of back-reflected light field from the conical tip was too low. For this reason, we had to set reference intensity at a high level by coating the tip with a thin layer of ...

In this paper, we present a new algorithm as an enhancement and preprocessing step for acquired optical coherence tomography (OCT) images of the retina. The proposed method is composed of two steps, first of which is a denoising algorithm with wavelet diffusion based on a circular symmetric Laplacian model, and the second part can be described in terms of graph-based geometry detection and curvature correction according to the hyper-reflective complex layer in the retina. The proposed denoising algorithm showed an improvement of contrast-to-noise ratio from 0.89 to 1.49 and an increase of signal-to-noise ratio (OCT image SNR) from ...

Large-volume optical coherence tomography (OCT) setups employ scanning mirrors and suffer from geometric distortion artefacts in which the degree of distortion is determined by the maximum angles over which the mirrors rotate. In this note, we describe a straightforward coordinate transformation scheme to correct for these artefacts in three dimensions, creating an alternative to previously reported ray-tracing schemes. We demonstrate that this recalibration procedure can be applied in real time by implementing the proposed algorithm on the graphics card of a standard computer, making it useful for topography applications. The accuracy of the proposed calibration procedure is validated over an ...

Color reproduction systems based on the multi-spectral imaging technique (MSI) for both directly estimating reflection spectra and direct visualization of oral tissues using various light sources are proposed. Images from three oral cancer patients were taken as the experimental samples, and spectral differences between pre-cancerous and normal oral mucosal tissues were calculated at three time points during 5-aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) to analyze whether they were consistent with disease processes. To check the successful treatment of oral cancer with ALA-PDT, oral cavity images by swept source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) are demonstrated. This system can also reproduce images under ...

Mueller matrix measurements are most commonly performed using a set of polarization state generating (PSG) optics and an independent set of polarization state analyzing (PSA) optics. However, for polarized confocal microscopy and polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography it would be advantageous if the same set of polarization optics could be used for both PSG as well as PSA. This has not been possible because, in this configuration, a complete set of incident and analyzer states cannot be generated using polarizers and waveplates alone. In an earlier attempt to address this issue it was shown that by using two Faraday rotators ...

We have proposed and demonstrated a highly stable spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) system based on dual-coupled-line subtraction. The proposed system achieved an ultrahigh axial resolution of 5 μm by combining four kinds of spectrally shifted superluminescent diodes at 1375 nm. Using the dual-coupled-line subtraction method, we made the system insensitive to fluctuations of the optical intensity that can possibly arise in various clinical and experimental conditions. The imaging stability was verified by perturbing the intensity by bending an optical fiber, our system being the only one to reduce the noise among the conventional systems. Also, the proposed method required ...

Hirschsprung's disease (HSCR) is a developmental intestinal obstruction, which is often diagnosed with a repeated biopsy. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a noninvasive, real-time imaging modality. This study aims to investigate the feasibility of diagnosis of HSCR, the targeted biopsies of suspicious tissues and the location of operative treatment using OCT. An HSCR Sprague–Dawley (SD) rat model (benzalkonium chloride-treated (BAC-treated)) was used. Colon tissues with BAC-treated and without BAC-treated were imaged using OCT. To establish OCT criteria for identification of HSCR, OCT images were compared with corresponding histology images and muscle layer thickness was measured. Furthermore, attenuation coefficients ...

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been demonstrated to be a powerful tool for noninvasive, real-time oral cancer diagnosis. However, in previous reports, OCT has still been found to be difficult to use in the diagnosis of oral precancerous stages, including mild dysplasia and moderate dysplasia. In clinical applications, early diagnosis and treatment of oral cancer can greatly improve the survival rate. Therefore, in this study, we propose a new approach to differentiate the oral precancerous stages based on the evaluation of the optical scattering properties of the epithelial layer, which is where the dysplastic cells start to develop in the ...

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a promising technology, which could be used in a variety of imaging applications. However, OCT images are usually degraded by speckle noise. Speckle noise reduction in OCT is particularly challenging because it is difficult to separate the noise and the information components in the speckle pattern. In this study, a novel speckle noise reduction technique, based on robust principal component analysis (RPCA), is presented and applied to OCT images for the first time. The proposed technique gives an optimal estimate of OCT image domain transformations such that the matrix of transformed OCT images can be ...

A well-established navigation method is one of the key conditions for successful brain surgery: it should be accurate, safe and online operable. Recent research shows that optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a potential solution for this application by providing a high resolution and small probe dimension. In this study a fiber-based spectral-domain OCT system utilizing a super-luminescent-diode with the center wavelength of 840 nm providing 14.5 μm axial resolution was used. A composite 125 μm diameter detecting probe with a gradient index (GRIN) fiber fused to a single mode fiber was employed. Signals were reconstructed into grayscale images by ...

The possibility of improving white-light full-field optical coherence tomography (OCT) resolution by image sensor colour balance tuning is shown numerically. We calculated the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of a coherence pulse registered by a silicon colour image sensor under various colour balance settings. The calculations were made for both a halogen lamp and white LED sources. The results show that the interference pulse width can be reduced by the proper choice of colour balance coefficients. The reduction is up to 18%, as compared with a colour image sensor with regular settings, and up to 20%, as compared with a monochrome ...

Based on the fact that spectral domain (SD) optical coherence tomography (OCT) data can be treated as digital holography (DH) data acquired pointwise, we develop a spectral refocusing algorithm and show its ability to shift the focal region of OCT images obtained from SD OCT data acquired with a tightly focused scanning beam. Although refocusing itself depends on the refractive index of the studied media, we propose a procedure capable of restoring images with resolution equal to the resolution in the focal plane in the whole volume even in case of unknown refractive index of the media. As the proposed ...

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a new, non-invasive, noncontact in vivo imaging technology. We demonstrated that the OCT can be used as a sufficient technique for nanocomposite microcapsule visualization in a liquid medium. As a model system we choose a water/glycerol mixture with viscosity in a variable range from 1.01 to 1.41×103 mPa s, including viscosity of a blood plasma. We have found that tomography spatial resolution is enough to visualize capsules and their aggregates in liquids and to estimate their concentration via two-dimensional (2D) tomography scan analysis. In our experimental conditions microcapsule concentration measured by ...

To quantify OCT images of rectal tissue for clinic diagnosis, the scattering coefficient of the tissue is extracted by curve fitting the OCT signals to a confocal single model. A total of 1000 measurements (half and half of normal and malignant tissues) were obtained from 16 recta. The normal rectal tissue has a larger scattering coefficient ranging from 1.09 to 5.41 mm−1 with a mean value of 2.29 mm−1 (std:±0.32), while the malignant group shows lower scattering property and the values ranging from 0.25 to 2.69 mm−1 with a mean ...

Immunization is one of the most efficient and cost-effective means for the prevention of diseases. The latest trend for inducing protective immunity is topical application of vaccines to intact skin rather than invasive administration via injection. Apart from being a non-invasive route of drug delivery, skin itself also offers advantages through the presence of cells of the immune system in both the dermis and epidermis. However, vaccine penetration through the outermost layers of skin is limited by the barrier provided by the Stratum corneum. In the current study utilizing conventional Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) we investigate the transcutaneous delivery of ...