Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
including developmental biology [
144
], cardiology [
145
], gastroenterology [
146
],
urology [
147
], and neurosurgery [
148
].
Fiber-based OCT can be integrated into different imaging delivery systems
including catheters and forward imaging devices to enable internal body OCT
imaging [
149
]. More recently, the OCT catheter has been combined with endoscope-
based delivery to perform in vivo imaging in animal models and human patients.
Endoscopic OCT can increase the functionality, detecting the subsurface margins of
lesions and quantifying tumor volumes. The feasibility of OCT to perform image-
guided surgical intervention has been investigated. OCT has been used to monitor
laser ablation therapy in real time and may enable more precise control of laser
delivery [
150
].
Apart from the more immediate medical applications of OCT, it has been
demonstrated in the field of developmental biology and cell research as a method
to perform high-resolution, high-speed imaging of developing morphology and
function [
144
,
151
]. The ability of OCT to identify the mitotic activity, the nuclear
to cytoplasmic ratio, and the migration of cell has the potential to not only impact
the cell and developmental biology but also impact medical and surgical disciplines
for early diagnostics of diseases such as cancer [
152
].
5.7.2
Nonmedical Applications
While the majority of OCT applications have been in the field of biology and
medicine, OCT has also been demonstrated in the nonbiological area of materials
investigation [
153
,
154
], optical data storage [
155
], and microfluidic devices [
156
].
OCT has been used to identify subsurface defects in ceramic and polymer compos-
ites. The optical ranging capability of OCT through scattering materials has been
utilized for increasing the data storage capability by assembling multiple layers of
optically accessible data. The advancement of microfabrication techniques has led
to increasing complex and bioMEM (biological micro-electro-mechanical) systems.
Microstructures within the microfluidic systems range from 10 to 1; 000 m, which
is within both imaging depth and resolution of OCT. In addition, microfluidic
systems are typically fabricated from transparent or semitransparent substrates,
facilitating imaging penetration to deeper 3D features [
12
].
5.7.3
New Trends in OCT
Although already being applied to a number of medical and nonmedical problems,
the OCT technology itself is still evolving, and there have also been further
developments in the refinement of OCT. Today we stand at the threshold of a new era
in OCT imaging with the transformation of technology from “time-domain” OCT
to the “spectral-domain” or “frequency-domain” OCT. FD-OCT will allow much
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