Intraoperative imaging of oral-maxillofacial lesions using optical coherence tomography

Abstract

Histopathological examination is still the gold standard for diagnoses of oral-maxillofacial lesions, but it is invasive and time-consuming. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides a kind of noninvasive, label-free, real-time and high-resolution imaging technology. In this study, in order to assess the feasibility of OCT in oral clinical application, fresh excised tissue specimens from 59 patients undergoing oral-maxillofacial surgery were imaged in detail by using a benchtop swept-source OCT system. It is shown that different lesions or tissues can be obviously distinguished based on their different microstructural features in OCT images, and the features are similar to those of their corresponding histopathological images. It is proven that OCT has great feasibility and potential as a diagnostic aid for surgeons in oral medicine.