Novel Technology Development for Super-Resolution Optical Coherence Tomography
microstructural images of tissue with subcellular information thus allowing exquisitely sensitive diagnosis of malignancies and inflammatory diseases in real-time.
Project Summary
Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is an emerging medical imaging technique with application in many fields, including ophthalmology, cardiology, oncology, etc. OCT can achieve imaging at depths of ~ 2-3 mm with a resolution in the micrometer scale (~ 2- 15 μm) and can, thus, adequately display microstructural changes in normal and dysplastic tissues. However, many of the hallmark changes associated with early cancer are not discernible even at this high resolution. The main purpose of this project is to enhance the axial ant lateral resolution of OCT. To achieve this goal a combination of both optical enhancements and post-processing will be employed. The project will include both simulations and experimental evaluation of the above techniques. The technology will also be assessed in a clinical setting for the detection of cancer of the colon.
The proposed project will result in new technology which will significantly improve the resolution of OCT images revealing sub-cellular level features. When these results are incorporated into clinical OCT systems, they will offer unprecedented imaging resolution thus increasing the effectiveness of OCT as a tool for the diagnosis of very early cancer and other disease processes. Such a tool can have significantly positive effects on the treatment and prognosis of cancer patients.
Additional Information
- What is Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) – Wikipedia
- Relevant Prior Publications by the UCY lab
- Bousi et al, Axial resolution improvement by modulated deconvolution in Fourier domain optical coherence tomography, JBO 2012
- Bousi et al, Optical coherence tomography axial resolution improvement by step-frequency encoding, Opt Expr 2010.
- Interesting publications / review papers
- Huang, et al, Optical Coherence Tomography, Science 1993
- Freher et al, Optical Coherence Tomography – Principles and Applications (Review), Rep. Prog. Phys 2003
- Podoleanu, Optical Coherence Tomography (Review), BJR 2005
- Pratl et al, Expert review document on methodology, terminology, and clinical applications of optical coherence tomography: physical principles, methodology of image acquisition, and clinical application for assessment of coronary arteries and atherosclerosis (Review), EHJ 2010
- Vakoc et al, Cancer imaging by optical coherence tomography: preclinical progress and clinical potential (Review), Nature Reviews Cancer 2012
Partners
The consortium includes 3 collaborating organizations. The host organization (HO) of the project is the University of Cyprus (UCY) through the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). The partners are the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) through the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) and the Nicosia General Hospital (NGH).
The University of Cyprus (UCY) is a rapidly growing university that admitted its first students in 1992. Its School of Engineering was established in 2000 and admitted its first students in September 2003. UCY today has around 3,600 undergraduate and 1,100 graduate students, and 850 faculty and staff. It aspires to promote scholarship and education standards of excellence through teaching and research. In 2001, an independent evaluation by the European University Association (EUA) found UCY a “vital and still very young university of good European standard, with high potential for development.” Some supportive quality indices include (a) A high selectivity in undergraduate admissions (1 out of 10 applications), (b) Successful competitive research funding (2:1 ratio over state investment) that has reached the € 16.1 million in 2010, (c) Significant scholarly production of 3.53 peer-reviewed publications per faculty/year (for 2002-2004) well above average of Mediterranean universities. The host Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering has received € 10.2 million in research funding and its faculty has published an average of 5.5 peerreviewed publications per faculty/ year (for 2007-2009). The proposed research will be performed in the laboratories of the University of Cyprus. The Biomedical Imaging and Applied Optics (BIAO) Laboratory is a fully equipped medical optics facility. It is well suited for optic and fiber-optic experiments with optical and electronics infrastructure and a variety of microscopy solutions. The equipment in the Laboratory included optical tables, laser sources, fiberoptic interferometers, high precision opto-mechanical components and state-of-the-art testing and acquisition electronics. The Laboratory also maintains an experimental OCT system for the development of new technology and algorithms.
National Technical University of Athens
The Biomedical Simulations and Imaging (BIOSIM) Laboratory is part of the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) and the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens(NTUA). The Laboratory is involved in research, mainly in the following areas: medical imaging and image processing, Biomedical signal processing and analysis, Computer aided diagnosis and treatment, Simulation and modeling of complex biological/physiological processes, Telematic applications in medicine, Neuroinformatics- Computational neuroscience, Bioinformatics. The BIOSIM Laboratory consists of 25 people, 14 of which hold a Ph.D. degree and 11 are Ph.D. candidates. The BIOSIM has a great expertise, a technological background and a scientific-research potential in biomedical systems. During the last years the BIOSIM Laboratory is involved in a number of greek and EU funded projects. Professor Konstantina Nikita has a great research experience in biomedical systems and over the last years she was the participate and coordinate many research project as INTERREG III – ARCHIMED, IST-iWebCare, FP6-IST-Micro2DNA, EC-eHealth-ΑΜΙCA, VIRTUOSO, CEPHOS, ΙNTERREG IIIA Cooperation Greece-Cyprus and COST projects.
The Nicosia General Hospital (NGH) is the largest state hospital and a point of reference for health care in Cyprus. A long-term collaboration between the Surgery and Histopathology Departments has led to the creation of well established protocols for tissue collection and preservation for the creation of a gastrointestinal tissue cryo-bank. The Department of Histopathology is the only State Histopathology lab, acting as a National reference centre providing comprehensive investigation to challenging cases with a dedicated team of 7 Pathologists, 12 Laboratory Scientists with a diverse field of expertise. This is enabled due to a wide variety of specialised techniques, immunohistochemistry and molecular techniques such as fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) and RT- PCR. The department participates in an external quality control scheme (UK National External Quality Assesment Service UK NEQAS). The molecular histopathology lab participates in the “Round Robin Test” quality control scheme, (Pathologisches Institut Der LMU). Since 2006 all malignant neoplasms are categorised, according to the ICD-O (third edition).