We present an endomicroscopic OCT probe for in vivo examination of the mucosa in the nose based on a voice coil actuator.
The side-viewing endoscope has a tip diameter of 3 mm and a usable length of 7 cm. A graded-index (GRIN) lens optics achieve a lateral resolution of 3 µm. At an actuator frequency between 40 Hz and 100 Hz the scanning range is up to 2 mm. A supercontinuum laser based mOCT system enables an axial resolution of 1 µm at a depth range of 700 µm.
The postprocessing includes the linearization of the sinusoidal scan pattern and a registration of the time series from B-scans.
The potential of the new design was demonstrated on ex-vivo mouse trachea. Essential morphological structures such as epithelium with ciliated cells, glands, blood and lymph vessels and also mucus transport were be visualized.
Changes in the structure of the nasal mucosa can be a morphological biomarker and therefore helpful for diagnosis and follow-up of various pulmonary diseases such as asthma, cystic fibrosis and primary ciliary dyskinesia. In order to verify that microscopic optical coherence tomography (mOCT) is a valuable instrument for the investigation of those changes, an endoscopic OCT system with microscopic resolution (emOCT) was developed and built for clinical testing. The endoscope is based on a graded-index (GRIN) lens optic and provides a calculated lateral resolution of 0.7 μm and an axial resolution of 1.25 μm. The imaging depth was up to 500 μm in tissue; axially, a lateral range of approximate 250 μm could be covered. B-scans were acquired at 80 Hz with 512 pixels in lateral and 1024 pixels in depth-direction. The diameter of the endoscope decreases over a length of 8 cm from 8 mm at the beginning to 1.4 mm at the end and is small enough to observe the mucous membrane in the human nasal concha media and inferior down to the nasopharynx. The emOCT workstation was designed to meet German electrical, optical and biological safety standards. The applicability of the endoscope could be demonstrated in vivo. Mucus transport, glands, blood and lymphatic vessels could be visualized.
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