Delineation of an oral cancer lesion with swept-source optical coherence tomography

We demonstrate the ex vivo imaging of an oral cancerous sample with a swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) system. With the axial resolution of 8 microm in free space and system sensitivity of 108 dB, we can well distinguish the normal and abnormal tissue portions in a sample. In particular, we analyze the lateral variation of A-scan profiles to show two parameters of SS-OCT signal for delineating an oral cancer lesion. One of the parameters is the decay constant in the exponential fitting of the SS-OCT signal intensity along depth. This decay constant decreases as the A-scan point moves laterally across the margin of a lesion. The other parameter is the standard deviation of the SS-OCT signal intensity fluctuation in an A-scan. This parameter increases significantly when the A-scan point is moved across the transition region between the normal and abnormal portions. Such parameters are useful for determining the margins of oral cancer.