Fast full-field OCT assessment of clinical tissue specimens (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

FFOCT (Full Field Optical Coherence Tomography) is a novel optical technology that gives access to very high resolution tomography images of biological tissues within minutes, non-invasively. This makes it an attractive tool to bridge the gap between medical imaging modalities (MRI, ultrasound, CT) used for cancer lesion identification or targeting and histological diagnosis. Clinical tissue specimens, such as surgical cancer margins or biopsies, can potentially be assessed rapidly, by the clinician, in the aim to help him decide on the course of action. A fast FFOCT prototype was built, that provides 1cm2 images with 1 µm resolution in 1 minute, and can accommodate samples up to 50mm diameter. Specific work was carried out to implement a large sample holder, high-speed image acquisition system, optimized scanning, and accelerated GPU tiles stitching. Results obtained on breast, urology, and digestive tissues show the efficiency of the technique for the detection of cancer on clinical tissue specimens, and reinforce the clinical relevance of the technique. The technical and clinical results show that the fast FFOCT system can successfully be used for a fast assessment of cancer excision margins or biopsies providing a very valuable tool in the clinical environment.