Microvascular imaging and monitoring of human oral cavity lesions in vivo by swept-source OCT-based angiography

Abstract

We report the development of optical coherence tomography- (OCT) based angiography (OCTA) to image blood flow within microcirculatory tissue beds in human oral cavity in vivo with a field of view at 10 mm x 10 mm. Three-dimensional (3D) structural and vascular images of labial mucosa tissue are obtained at a single 3D acquisition. Pathologic mucosal sites with mouth ulcers are examined using the OCT tomograms and angiograms, upon which to monitor the lesion healing process over a period of 2 weeks. Quantitative metrics of the capillary loop density within the lamina propria layer are evaluated, providing statistically significant difference between healthy and diseased conditions over time. Furthermore, tissue anatomy and vessel morphology of other susceptible sites to ulcer, such as tongue, alveolar mucosa, and labial frenulum, are also imaged to demonstrate the promise of the proposed method as a clinically useful tool for the diagnosis and monitoring of therapeutic treatment of oral tissue abnormalities.