Few companies produce endoscopic imaging probes for research applications, but several custom probe designs have been published in the literature. Researchers who wish to use OCT may choose to purchase a commercial OCT system that provides the desired imaging speed, axial resolution (lateral resolution is determined by the probe optics), and imaging depth. Jude Medical) imaging.Īrguably the most challenging and expensive components of an OCT system are the light source and the “engine” responsible for system control, data acquisition, and data processing.
At least 40 companies currently produce research or clinical OCT systems, including clinical endoscope/catheter-based systems for esophageal (NinePoint Medical) and intravascular (St. Originally adopted by the ophthalmic community, OCT has also been used to investigate the gastrointestinal tract. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a scanning imaging modality that generates cross-sectional images with high lateral and axial resolution (typically < 15 μm) to depths of up to 2 mm. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the paper.įunding: This research was supported by the National Cancer Institute () and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute () of the National Institutes of Health under award numbers R01CA109385 (JKB) and T32HL007955 (WAW), respectively, and the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery () Student Research Grant (WAW). Received: JAccepted: SeptemPublished: September 29, 2015Ĭopyright: © 2015 Welge, Barton. University Hospital Llandough, UNITED KINGDOM Citation: Welge WA, Barton JK (2015) Expanding Functionality of Commercial Optical Coherence Tomography Systems by Integrating a Custom Endoscope.