Cervical epithelial brightness by optical coherence tomography can determine histological grades of cervical neoplasia.
OBJECTIVE
The study aimed to determine if the difference in cervical epithelium brightness, as measured by optical coherence tomography (OCT), has potential as a distinguishing characteristic of normal, low-grade, high-grade (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 2+), and cancer histological findings.


METHODS
Information from 476 women was available for analysis. Demographic information was collected through in-person interview. All participants were human papillomavirus positive and/or had abnormal cytological finding and underwent colposcopy or unaided visual inspection and examination by OCT by quadrant. All women had a minimum of 4 OCT-matched cervical biopsies and endocervical curettage. Two sample t tests were used to measure differences in OCT image brightness by histological grades.


RESULTS
Mean OCT image brightness differed significantly between each preinvasive histological grade and invasive cancer (p < .01 for all comparisons). Brightness as measured by OCT was also able to differentiate between squamous metaplasia and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 3/cancer; p values were .004 and .003, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Epithelial brightness is an important component of cervical epithelium diagnosis by OCT, and we plan to add it to our diagnostic mathematical algorithm in all future versions of OCT software.
Preventive Oncology International, Inc., Cleveland Heights, USA.
Suzanne E
SE
Belinson
Katy
K
Ledford
Nabila
N
Rasool
Andrew
A
Rollins
Na
N
Wilan
Chun
C
Wang
Xuan
X
Rong
Wei
W
Zhang
Yasha
Y
Zhu
Nancy
N
Tresser
RuiFang
R
Wu
Jerome L
JL
Belinson
D000328:Adult; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009375:Neoplasms, Glandular and Epithelial / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology*; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000379:methods*; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology*; D055815:Young Adult