Abstract
We present optical coherence micro-elastography, an improved form of compression optical coherence elastography. We demonstrate the capacity of this technique to produce en face images, closely corresponding with histology, that reveal micro-scale mechanical contrast in human breast and lymph node tissues. We use phase-sensitive, three-dimensional optical coherence tomography (OCT) to probe the nanometer-to-micrometer-scale axial displacements in tissues induced by compressive loading. Optical coherence micro-elastography incorporates common-path interferometry, weighted averaging of the complex OCT signal and weighted least-squares regression. Using three-dimensional phase unwrapping, we have increased the maximum detectable strain eleven-fold over no unwrapping and the minimum detectable strain is 2.6 με. We demonstrate the potential of mechanical over optical contrast for visualizing micro-scale tissue structures in human breast cancer pathology and lymph node morphology.
Highlights
Key to the advancement of the optical microscopy of tissue has been the exploration of sources of contrast aimed at improving the visualization of structure and providing information on function
We aim to address this with optical coherence micro-elastography, which improves on existing compression optical coherence elastography (OCE) techniques [22, 26] by incorporating commonpath interferometry [27], averaging of the complex optical coherence tomography (OCT) signal and three-dimensional phase unwrapping
The results presented in this paper demonstrate the potential of optical coherence microelastography in imaging excised breast and lymph node tissue
Summary
Key to the advancement of the optical microscopy of tissue has been the exploration of sources of contrast aimed at improving the visualization of structure and providing information on function. Over the same length scales, the mechanical properties of tissue are a rich alternative to optical sources of contrast [3]. Tumor cells are known to be commonly softer than their normal counterparts and, at the same time, tumors commonly cause the generation of additional collagen-dense stroma making them feel stiffer on the macroscale [5]. The result of this innate heterogeneity is that, on the microscopic scale, malignant tissues often have a broader stiffness distribution than normal tissues [5]
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