BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS OF OPTICAL LOW-COHERENCE REFLECTOMETRY

光学相干反射仪(OCDR)最初是作为一种 用于高分辨率探测来自组件的反射的方法 光纤系统。我们一直在探索这一技术的应用 生物组织成像和表征技术。 使用我们实验室制造的样机，我们成功了。 在对活体皮肤和其他组织的亚表层结构进行成像方面。至 帮助了解对比度和分辨率的限制 用这种新型显微镜获得的，数学模型 部分相干光在致密组织中的传播已经被 在组织和组织模体上的实验中构建和测试。 我们的结果表明，在不对任何组织进行染色或修改的情况下 通过这种方式，可以对嵌入皮肤组织中的1 mm到2 mm的结构进行成像 分辨率约为10毫米。

Optical-coherence reflectometry (OCDR) was first introduced as a method for high-resolution probing of reflections from components of fiber-optic systems. We have been exploring the applications of this technique to imaging and to characterization of biological tissues. Using prototype instruments built in our laboratory, we have succeeded in imaging subsurface structures in living skin and other tissues. To help understand the limits of contrast and resolution that can be attained with this new type of microscopy, mathematical models of the propagation of partially coherent light in dense tissue have been constructed and tested in experiments on tissues and tissue phantoms. Our results show that without staining or modifying a tissue in any way, structures embedded 1 mm to 2 mm in skin tissue can be imaged with a resolution of about 10 mm.