title: Deep imaging of absorption and scattering features by multispectral multiple scattering low coherence interferometry.
abstract: We have developed frequency domain multispectral multiple scattering low coherence interferometry (ms2/LCI) for deep imaging of absorption and scattering contrast. Using tissue-mimicking phantoms that match the full scattering phase function of human dermal tissue, we demonstrate that ms2/LCI can provide a signal/noise ratio (SNR) improvement of 15.4 dB over conventional OCT at an imaging depth of 1 mm. The enhanced SNR and penetration depth provided by ms2/LCI could be leveraged for a variety of clinical applications including the assessment of burn injuries where current clinical classification of severity only provides limited accuracy. The utility of the approach was demonstrated by imaging a tissue phantom simulating a partial-thickness burn revealing good spectroscopic contrast between healthy and injured tissue regions deep below the sample surface. Finally, healthy rat skin was imagedin vivowith both a commercial OCT instrument and our custom ms2/LCI system. The results demonstrate that ms2/LCI is capable of obtaining spectroscopic information far beyond the penetration depth provided by conventional OCT.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Jason R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Maher
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Mohamed M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Ibrahim
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Jennifer S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Chien
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27708, USA; Department of Pathology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Howard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Levinson
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wax
keywords: (110.1650) Coherence imaging; (170.6510) Spectroscopy, tissue diagnostics; (290.4210) Multiple scattering