title: A novel multimodal optical imaging system for early detection of oral cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Several imaging techniques have been advocated as clinical adjuncts to improve identification of suspicious oral lesions. However, these have not yet shown superior sensitivity or specificity over conventional oral examination techniques. We developed a multimodal, multi-scale optical imaging system that combines macroscopic biochemical imaging of fluorescence lifetime imaging with subcellular morphologic imaging of reflectance confocal microscopy for early detection of oral cancer. We tested our system on excised human oral tissues.
  
  
  METHODS
  In total, 4 tissue specimens were imaged. These specimens were diagnosed as either clinically normal, oral lichen planus, gingival hyperplasia, or superficially invasive squamous cell carcinoma. The optical and fluorescence lifetime properties of each specimen were recorded.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Both quantitative and qualitative differences among normal, benign, and squamous cell carcinoma lesions can be resolved with fluorescence lifetime imaging reflectance confocal microscopy. The results demonstrate that an integrated approach based on these two methods can potentially enable rapid screening and evaluation of large areas of oral epithelial tissue.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Early results from ongoing studies of imaging human oral cavity illustrate the synergistic combination of the 2 modalities. An adjunct device based on such optical characterization of oral mucosa can potentially be used to detect oral carcinogenesis in early stages.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Bilal H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Malik
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Joey M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Jabbour
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Shuna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Rodrigo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cuenca
authors.affiliation: Department of Diagnostic Sciences, Texas A&M University Health Science Center - Baylor College of Dentistry, Dallas, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Yi-Shing Lisa
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Diagnostic Sciences, Texas A&M University Health Science Center - Baylor College of Dentistry, Dallas, TX, USA.
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Javier A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Jo
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA. Electronic address: Kmaitland@tamu.edu.
authors.forename: Kristen C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Maitland
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer; D006801:Humans; D036641:Microscopy, Fluorescence, Multiphoton; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D064847:Multimodal Imaging; D011230:Precancerous Conditions / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*