Miniaturized rapid scanning, forward-viewing catheterscope for optical coherence tomography (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

Patients afflicted with bladder cancer undergo annual surveillance in the clinic with flexible white light cystoscopy (WLC). However, WLC lacks the sensitivity to detect all bladder tumors and provides no stage information. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) can overcome these limitations of WLC due to its ability to visualize subsurface details of the bladder wall, to stage cancers and to detect tumors otherwise invisible to WLC. A major challenge, however, to realizing OCT imaging during clinical cystoscopies is developing a forward-viewing OCT catheterscope capable of passing through the 2.4-mm working channel of a standard flexible cystoscope. Additionally, to aid in identifying new tumors, the OCT system must be fast enough to collect data over the surface of the bladder without significantly increasing the procedure time. We have developed the first rapid-scanning forward-viewing OCT catheterscope that uses scanning fiber technology and is suitable for integration into flexible cystoscopes. The scanning fiber scope has a resonance frequency exceeding 2 kHz, which enables rapid volumetric data collection at a rate of 12.5 Hz. We expand on our previous design of such a scope by miniaturizing the scope package to a diameter of 1.29 mm and a rigid length of 19 mm, making this the smallest such package for forward-viewing, scanning OCT scopes. We validate the imaging quality of our prototype scope using phantom and ex vivo pig bladder samples. The miniaturized, rapid-scanning OCT scope is a promising tool to enable early detection and staging of bladder cancer during flexible WLC.