Optical Coherence Tomography in Brain Gliomas Detection and Peritumoral White Matter State Evaluation

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a rapidly emerging visualization method providing real-time detailed information about the biological tissues structure without any contrast agents based on the backscattered light detection. In this chapter, we discuss the perspectives of application of OCT in brain glioma surgery. The reader can get acquainted with the problems arising in brain tumor surgery and the possibility of using OCT to solve them. The information about the types of OCT data collected in neurosurgery, approaches for their assessment as well as main features of OCT signal representative for different brain tissue types are presented in the chapter. In addition to the perspectives of using OCT for differentiating tumor and healthy brain tissues, we also demonstrate the possibility of using this technology to evaluate morphological features of white matter in the perifocal area of the tumor and talk about the prospects of using machine learning and artificial intelligence for classifying OCT images.