Chapter 8 – Enhanced Imaging of the Esophagus: Optical Coherence Tomography

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an optical analog of ultrasound imaging that was invented in the early 1990s. OCT fills a resolution gap between confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) and ultrasound, affording the capability of visualizing architectural microscopic morphology at a resolution of approximately 10 µm and to a depth of several millimeters (mm). OCT is also advantageous in that it provides cross-sectional images that are similar to that of histopathology viewed under low power magnification. Similar to ultrasound, OCT measures the time delay of optical echoes backscattered from structures within tissue, capturing microstructural data as a function of depth within tissue.