Dual mode fibre bundle confocal endomicroscopy: combining reflectance and fluorescence imaging

Commercial endomicroscopes operate in fluorescence mode only and so require the application of contrast agents. As an alternative, we describe a fibre bundle confocal endomicroscope which acquires simultaneous and co-registered fluorescence and reflectance mode images. A combination of polarisation selection and refractive index matching is used to minimise back-reflections from the fibre bundle. We show preliminary results from the system using phantoms and tissue samples.