Despite the large population that suffers from inner ear diseases, there is a limited understanding and capacity to diagnose the cellular origins of inner ear diseases. One major obstacle is difficulty accessing and observing the inner ear in living patients. We developed an ultra-flexible miniature micro-OCT endoscope that can be inserted into the scala tympani through the round window over more than 20 mm and take cellular resolution OCT images. It has the potential to provide physicians with a new diagnostic approach for tailoring next-generation cochlear implants and administering personalized pharmacologic treatments for a wide variety of inner ear diseases.
We have developed a new µOCT tethered Capsule Endomicroscopy imaging system for the diagnosis of Inflammatory bowel disease and Gastrointestinal cancer with micrometer resolution. The capsule we built measures 30 mm in length and 11 mm in diameter. By employing an optical design that incorporates the mirror tunnel design, we achieved a lateral resolution of less than 4 µm across a depth of field of 450 µm. The spectrometer we designed provides a resolution of 1.8 µm over a 4 mm imaging range, with an A-scan rate of up to 300 kHz. Imaging performance is demonstrated by beam profiling and imaging esophagus ex vivo.
Cochlear implant is by far the most successful treatment for sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) - the most common sensory deficit in the world. Although it was generally prescribed, the understanding of the etiology and the cellular structural abnormalities of SNHL is still limited due to the lack of direct imaging of the interior of the inner ear of living human patients. We have developed a micro-OCT probe that can serve as the stylet of a cochlear implant, which can perform cellular-level imaging through the cochlear implant during the surgery, providing diagnostic information and guidance to the surgeons.
Micro-optical coherence tomography (µOCT), is an emerging optical imaging approach enabling visualization of tissue microstructures at near cellular level. Small form-factor fiber-optic probes are needed to enable uOCT devices for minimally invasive diagnostic procedures such as coronary catheterization for atherosclerosis evaluation. Manufacturing complexities associated with miniaturizing current fiber-optic probes limit their optical and mechanical performance. We will present details of the design and construction of these miniaturized µOCT probes comprising TPL-based 3D printed optics, along with pre-clinical imaging results from an animal model. This probe is capable of lateral resolution of 5 µm and EDOF exceeding 850 µm in tissue.
To address the unmet need to study the microstructure changes in the cochlea that occur with sensorineural hearing loss, we have constructed a miniature flexible micro-OCT catheter that can be inserted into the human cochlea and acquire images with cellular-level resolution. The OCT catheter was designed, fabricated, and characterized. Crucial mechanical properties (flexibility, insertion force) were measured and found to be comparable to those of commercial cochlear implants. These early results suggest that this new device may provide a viable approach for diagnosing SNHL and selecting the most appropriate treatments on an individual patient basis.
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