title: In vivo optical coherence tomography for the diagnosis of oral malignancy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Oral cancer results in 10,000 U.S. deaths annually. Improved highly sensitive diagnostics allowing early detection of oral cancer would benefit patient survival and quality of life. Objective was to investigate in vivo non-invasive optical coherence tomography (OCT) techniques for imaging and diagnosing neoplasia-related epithelial, sub-epithelial changes throughout carcinogenesis.
  
  
  METHODS
  In the standard hamster cheek pouch model for oral carcinogenesis (n = 36), in vivo OCT was used to image epithelial and sub-epithelial change. OCT- and histopathology-based diagnoses on a scale of 0 (healthy) to 6 (squamous cell carcinoma, SCC) were performed at all stages throughout carcinogenesis by two blinded investigators.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Epithelial, sub-epithelial structures were clearly discernible using OCT. OCT diagnosis agreed with the histopathological gold standard in 80% of readings.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In vivo OCT demonstrates excellent potential as a diagnostic tool in the oral cavity.
authors.affiliation: Beckman Laser Institute, University of California-Irvine, 1002 Health Sciences Road East, Irvine, CA 92612, USA. pwsmith@bli.uci.edu
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wilder-Smith
authors.forename: Woong-Gyu
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brenner
authors.forename: Kathryn
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Osann
authors.forename: Hamza
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Beydoun
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Messadi
authors.forename: Zhongping
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000473:pathology*; D006224:Cricetinae; D004867:Equipment Design; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000295:instrumentation