| This document describes the motivation, theory and experimental results of a series of experiments designed to test the effect of simple chemicals of common clinical use in optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging of the human cervix. The goal was to determine whether acetic acid, hypertonic saline solution, toulidine blue or Lugol's iodine could help differentiate normal versus abnormal tissue when imaged with OCT. Experiments were conducted in normal and cancer cells in suspension, and in human cervical tissue in and ex vivo. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference in the mean intensity of epithelial layer as imaged with OCT in the cases of normal and abnormal tissue. Menopausal state was identified as an important parameter to differentiate normal and abnormal mean intensities in OCT images. The results also indicate that while all of the agents tested have an effect in the optical backscattering properties of cells and tissue, only acetic acid has a differentiating effect superior to that of native, untreated tissue, and only in the case of post menopausal women. This dissertation also describes the design, construction and testing of instrumentation that combines the sub-surface imaging capabilities of OCT with surface fluorescence imaging. This simultaneous use of different optical techniques may be used in lieu of extrinsic contrast agents to help differentiate normal and cancer tissue in the future. |
