Enhanced visualization of retinal pathologies with ultrahigh resolution optical coherence tomography

Current clinical practice calls for the development of techniques to diagnose diseases in its early stages, when treatment is most effective and significant irreversible damage can either be prevented or delayed. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an emerging medical diagnostic technology being investigated for applications in a number of medical fields including ophthalmology, cardiology, and gastroenterology. OCT is analogous to ultrasound except that it uses light waves rather than sound waves. OCT can achieve a much higher resolution than ultrasound in measuring the underlying tissue microstructures. Another advantage of OCT is that it can achieve imaging in a non-contact and non-invasive manner. With typical axial resolution of 10 [mu]m, OCT already provides significantly more detailed structural information than any other conventional clinical imaging technique. The development of OCT with even higher resolution would potentially have significant impact in diagnosing diseases in such fields as ophthalmology, cardiology, gastroenterology, and oncology. Ultrahigh resolution OCT systems have been developed for animal research and clinical ophthalmology. Ultrahigh resolution OCT improves the axial resolution of OCT from the standard 10 [mu]m to 1 [mu]m for animal studies and 3 [mu]m for clinical studies. This improved imaging resolution approaches that of histopathology. Therefore, OCT can potentially function as "optical biopsy" since it permits the imaging of tissue microstructure with resolutions approaching that of histopathology except that imaging can be performed in real time, without the need of tissue removal.

Department dc:contributor.department

Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Ko, Tony Hong-Tyng, 1975-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• James G. Fujimoto.

• Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

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/1721.1/33073
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/33073

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33073