Biofilms are persistent microbial communities that play a significant role in middle ear pathologies. Spectral domain (SD)-OCT has been used to detect biofilms in the middle ear during otitis media. However, it cannot measure birefringence or probe deeper regions of the middle ear cavity. A polarization-sensitive swept-source OCT system has been developed to image in vitro biofilms and cholesteatoma to enhance identification and classification of these pathologies. Biofilms were grown on tympanic membranes and ossicles to assess for changes in birefringence. A handheld probe is being developed to compare against a library of in vivo SD-OCT images.
KEYWORDS: Optical coherence tomography, Biological research, Ear, In vitro testing, Image analysis, Principal component analysis, In vivo imaging, Feature extraction, Binary data
Otitis media (OM) is a prevalent disease among children worldwide. Antibiotic-resistant bacterial biofilms can develop in the middle ear during recurrent/chronic ear infections. OCT was used to compare microstructural texture features from primary bacterial biofilms in vitro. From 1200 ROI images of each biofilm class, 934 texture features were extracted. Principle component analysis and five-fold cross-validation were performed using Support vector machines (SVMs). Currently, the model has achieved 0.97 AUC (cubic kernel function) and an average classification accuracy of 89%. Texture analysis of bacterial biofilm OCT images with SVM may enable real-time visualization and differentiation of OM-causing bacterial biofilms in vivo.
Otitis media or middle-ear infection is a widespread bacterial/viral disease. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria within biofilms emerge during chronic ear infections and are challenging to treat. We explored Raman spectroscopy (RS) and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) to identify and compare unique spectroscopic and microstructural features from primary otopathogenic bacteria in colony, planktonic, and biofilm forms, in vitro. RS was utilized to identify biochemical fingerprints and OCT was used to generate depth-resolved 2D and 3D images to compare refractive indices and optical attenuation coefficients. A combined RS-OCT system will enable real-time visualization and diagnosis of bacterial OM at the point-of-care.
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