Ultrahigh resolution optical coherence tomography for the detection of early stage neoplastic pathologies

Identification of changes associated with early stage disease remains a critical objective of clinical detection and treatment. Effective screening and detection is important for improving outcome because advanced disease, such as metastatic cancer, can be difficult to impossible to cure. Many existing diagnostic modalities, including x-ray imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound, and endoscopy do not have sufficient resolution to detect changes in architectural morphology associated with early neoplasia and other pathologies. Diagnostic modalities capable of identifying pre-malignant tissue at an early stage could therefore significantly improve treatment outcome. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an emerging biomedical imaging technique that can potentially be used as an in vivo tool for identifying early stage neoplastic pathologies. Recent advances in solid-state laser and nonlinear fiber technology have enabled the development of ultrahigh resolution and spectroscopic OCT techniques which promise to improve tissue differentiation and image contrast. Previous ex vivo, benchtop ultrahigh resolution OCT imaging studies suggest that differentiation of architectural morphology associated with pathology is feasible. This thesis covers the development and investigation of ultrahigh resolution OCT for studies of early neoplastic pathologies.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Hsiung, Pei-Lin, 1975-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• James G. Fujimoto.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33938

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33938