In vivo OCT study of neoplastic alterations of the oral cavity mucosa

摘要

The goal of our study was to conduct a statistical evaluation of the abib'ty of optical coherence tomography (OCT) to detect neoplasia in vivo in oral cavity. The study enrolled 97 patients (35 volunteers with healthy mucosa of the oral cavity - group Ⅰ, 41 patients with benign conditions - group Ⅱ, 21 patients with dysplasia or carcinoma - group Ⅲ). The diagnosis was established by a histopathology examination of biopsy material. Each biopsy site was imaged by OCT beforehand. Sensitivity of 83% and specificity of 98% were observed as a result of OCT image recognition of dysplastic/malignant versus benign/reactive conditions in the oral cavity. The interobserver agreement kappa was 0.76. Such sensitivity and specificity makes OCT a promising tool for non-invasive evaluation of tissue sites suspicious for high-grade dysplasia and cancer.