Devices, methods, and systems of functional optical coherence tomography

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10524664-B2
Application number	US-201715583615-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 1, 2017
Priority date	Apr 29, 2016
Publication date	Jan 7, 2020
Grant date	Jan 7, 2020

Abstract

The present disclosure provides systems and methods for the determining a rate of change of one or more analyte concentrations in a target using non invasive non contact imaging techniques such as OCT. Generally, OCT data is acquired and optical information is extracted from OCT scans to quantitatively determine a flow rate of fluid in the target; angiography is also performed using one or more fast scanning methods to determine a concentration of one or more analytes. Both calculations can provide a means to determine a change in rate of an analyte over time. Example methods and systems of the disclosure may be used in assessing metabolism of a tissue, where oxygen is the analyte detected, or other functional states, and be generally used for the diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of disease.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for imaging a target, the method comprising:
a. performing optical coherence tomography (OCT) scanning on the target with one or more beams of low coherence light, wherein the one or more beams of light comprise one or more near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths;
b. acquiring interference signals generated by OCT scanning to determine a flow rate of a fluid in the target and generating a three dimensional (3D) image of the target;
c. performing angiography on the target with fast scanning using narrow band illumination, wherein fast scanning corresponds to a frame rate of at least 40 Hz;
d. acquiring optical attenuation spectra from the angiography at multi-wavelengths;
e. determining a concentration of one or more analytes including oxygen saturation, from the acquired optical attenuation spectra from the angiography;
f. determining a rate of change of the one or more analyte concentrations in the target based on the determining of flow rate of the fluid and a concentration of one or more analytes; and
g. simultaneously quantitatively imaging the flow rate of the fluid in the target and the concentration of one or more analytes in the fluid in the target.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the generating the 3D-imaging in the target is performed without contacting at least one analyte with an exogenous reagent or label.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the OCT scanning generates one or more A-scans.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein angiography requires generating multiple repeated images, and calculation of differences or standard deviation among the acquired image sequence stacks at each illumination.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein angiography is performed with multiple wavelengths to collect optical attenuation spectra.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more beams of light are used to perform multi-beam or multi-band scanning OCT.

7. The method of claim 1 for angiography, wherein the one or more beams of light illuminate the target concurrently or sequentially.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the OCT scanning on the target is performed with identical or different pre-defined scanning trajectories.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the angiography on the target is performed with identical or different predetermined illumination wavelengths, bandwidth, illumination intensities.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the angiography on the target is performed with identical or different predetermined repetition times and imaging field of views.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the target is selected from the group consisting of tissue, healthy tissue, diseased tissue, retina, tumor, cancer, growth, fibroid, lesion, skin, mucosal lining, organ, graft, blood supply and one or more blood vessels.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the quantitatively imaging the flow rate of the fluid in the target is performed using invisible light.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the quantitatively imaging a concentration of one or more analytes, including oxygen saturation, in the fluid in the target is performed using visible light at multi-wavelengths.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the fluid is selected from the group consisting of whole blood, blood plasma, blood serum, urine, semen, tears, sweat, saliva, lymph fluid, pleural effusion, peritoneal fluid, meningal fluid, amniotic fluid, glandular fluid, spinal fluid, conjunctival fluid, vitreous, aqueous, vaginal fluid, bile, mucus, sputum and cerebrospinal fluid.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the analyte is selected from the group consisting of oxygen, hemoglobin, oxygenated hemoglobin, deoxygenated hemoglobin, glucose, sugar, blood area nitrogen, lactate, hematocrit, biomarker and nucleic acid.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the rate of change of one or more analytes is performed by comparing or using a reference.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the reference is healthy tissue.

18. The method of claim 16 , wherein the reference is the target in which the flow rate of the fluid and the concentration of one or more analytes have been previously been quantified.

19. The method of claim 1 , wherein performing angiography comprises performing angiography on the target with fast scanning and wide field imaging using narrow band illumination.

Assignees

• Univ Northwestern
• Opticent Inc

Inventors

• Liu Wenzhong
• Duan Lian
• Zhang Hao F
• Patel Kieren J
• Li Hao
• Dong Biqin
• Fawzi Amani A

Classifications

• A61B5/0066 Primary

  Optical coherence imaging · CPC title

• G06T2207/10101

  Optical tomography; Optical coherence tomography [OCT] · CPC title

• G06T7/0012

  Biomedical image inspection · CPC title

• A61B5/0035

  adapted for acquisition of images from more than one imaging mode, e.g. combining MRI and optical tomography · CPC title

• A61B5/489

  Blood vessels · CPC title