New fiber-based approaches for optical biopsy (Conference Presentation)

Optical biopsy of tissue using fiber optic probes has proven to be a powerful tool for non-invasive and minimally invasive diagnostics. However, there are still many challenges to improving diagnostic value and commercial translation of these techniques. Many fiber-based methods are limited by background noise, which impairs sensitivity and specificity. Aspects of quality control, such as adequacy of the target of interest sampled and validation of optical measurements with histopathology can be problematic. Complexity, cost, and disposability or sterilizability are roadblocks to widespread clinical use. Here, we present new approaches to using fibers for optical biopsy aimed at solving these problems. Specifically, the new concepts are designed with the goals of being simple and disposable, to improve control of light delivery and collection from the sample, and to inherently enable better quality control of the biopsy process. A concept-of-operation aimed at nearly zero impact to the work flow of the biopsy and standard pathology procedures will be outlined. Several concepts for fiber implementations will be presented. A trade-off analysis of the concepts used to select a first implementation for testing will be presented. Preliminary experimental validation in phantoms and tissue samples will be presented for the selected configuration.