Characterization of ultrastructural morphology in ex vivo bovine tissues using nanosensitive optical coherence tomography

Pauline John, Azhar Zam

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The nanosensitive optical coherence tomography (nsOCT) technique was used to characterize the ultrastructure of ex vivo bovine tissues. Intensity-based OCT images were acquired from ex vivo bovine biological hard and soft tissues such as bone, fat, and muscle using the SD-OCT system (GAN 611C1, Thorlabs), with a 930 nm superluminescent light emitting diode (SLED), a bandwidth of 102 nm, an axial resolution of ∼3.8 μm in tissue and a lateral resolution of 8 μm. A nanosensitive OCT algorithm was implemented to obtain nsOCT images, and were compared with intensity-based OCT images. nsOCT assists in the enhancement of sensitivity and detection of structures in the nanoscale order. The characterization of spatial periods between 315 nm and 320 nm was performed for different types of hard and soft ex vivo bovine tissues. The measured mean spatial period for bone, muscle, and fat are ∼314.96 nm, 317.91 nm, and ∼319.97 nm, respectively. This highlights the differences in their structural organization. Further extension of this work towards early detection of nanostructural changes occurring in tissues with time and automated sub-micron level characterization and differentiation of healthy/cancerous and soft/hard tissues using Deep Learning algorithms can be helpful in medical diagnosis and surgery.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number131455
JournalOptics Communications
Volume577
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2025

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
  • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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