Optical coherence tomography in diagnosing inflammatory diseases of ENT

The object of the study was to demonstrate the abilities of optical coherence tomography (OCT) technique in diagnostics of inflammatory processes in ear, nose, and throat (ENT). When used in diagnostics of the nose and pharynx, OCT facilitates differential diagnostics of rhini- tis enabling differentiation between the normal state, two stages of allergic rhinitis, vasomotor and atrophic rhinitis and diagnostics of pharyngitis. This paper also demon- strates the ability of OCT to monitor changes in pharynx induced by cryotherapy. In diagnostics of the tympanic cavity the ability of OCT to differentiate between dif- ferent stages of chronic otitis and retraction of the tym- panic membrane is demonstrated. Finally a correlation is discussed between morphologic alterations induced by inflammatory processes and changes in diagnostic OCT images.