Ex-vivo endoscopic laryngeal cancer imaging using two forward-looking fiber optic scanning endoscope probes

Larynx cancer is one of the most common primary head and neck cancers. For early-stage laryngeal cancer, both surgery and radiotherapy are effective treatment modalities, offering a high rate of local control and cure. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an established non-invasive optical biopsy method, capable of imaging ranges of 2- 3 mm into tissue. By using the principles of low coherence light interferometry, OCT can be used to distinguish normal from unhealthy laryngeal mucosa in patients. Two forward-looking endoscope OCT probes of different sizes in a sweeping frequency OCT (SS-OCT) configuration were compared in terms of their performances for ex-vivo laryngeal cancer imaging. The setup configuration of the first OCT probe unit was designed and constructed at the Institute of Applied Physics RAS, Russia (diameter of 1.9 mm and the rigid part at the distal end is 13 mm long). The second OCT endoscope probe was constructed at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, USA, using a tubular piezoelectric actuator with quartered electrodes in combination with a resonant fiber cantilever (diameter of 2.4 mm, and rigid part of 45 mm). Cross-sectional images of laryngeal lesions using the two OCT configurations were aquired and compared with OCT images obtained in a 1310 nm SS-OCT classical non-endoscopic system. The work presented here is an intermediate step in our research towards in-vivo endoscopic laryngeal cancer imaging.