Interpixel-shifted endoscopic optical coherence tomography for in vivo bladder cancer diagnosis

An interpixel-shifted spectral imaging technique is applied to MEMS-based spectral-domain endoscopic optical coherence tomography (SDEOCT) to enhance signal-to-noise ratio and effective imaging depth for in vivo imaging diagnosis of biological tissue. To validate the enhancements of pixel-shifted SDEOCT, experimental comparisons are presented to image animal and human bladder architectures in vivo and to diagnose human transitional cell cancers. Preliminary study shows that interpixel shifted SDEOCT not only increases the depth of field of SDOCT but also eliminates excessive artifacts induced by spectral aliasing effect, thus improving image contrast in areas with large depths (e.g. over 1.5 mm). These results suggest that endoscopic OCT equipped with interpixel-shifted spectral camera has the potential to enhance the diagnosis of biological tissue in in vivo settings that require a larger field of view in the axial direction, such as papillary bladder tumors with deep surface irregularities (e.g. asperities or invaginations).