Optical Coherence Tomography Offers Noninvasive Way to Visualize Tissues of the Larynx: This emerging technology could improve testing for laryngeal cancers

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides a method to view tissues at the micron level, and for the delicate tissues of the vocal folds, this procedure offers much of the cellular information of a biopsy without the associated morbidity.

OCT is an emerging technology, which in many disciplines is still investigational, said Brian J. F. Wong, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of California-Irvine.

I think the most important thing that OCT of the head and neck allows you to determine is the integrity of the basement membrane, said Dr. Wong, who is also associated with the Department of Biomedical Engineering and The Beckman Laser Institute at UC-Irvine, and in the case of early cancers, when the integrity of the basement membrane is compromised, one’s index of suspicion with respect to early invasive cancer is extremely high.