Portable real-time optical coherence tomography system for intraoperative imaging and staging of breast cancer

Breast cancer continues to be one of the most widely diagnosed forms of cancer amongst women and the second leading type of cancer deaths amongst women. The recurrence rate of breast cancer is highly dependent on several factors including the complete removal of the primary tumor and the presence of cancer cells in involved lymph nodes. The metastatic spread and staging of breast cancer is also evaluated through the nodal assessment of the regional lymphatic system. A portable real-time spectral domain optical coherence tomography system is being presented as a clinical diagnostic tool in the intraoperative delineation of tumor margins as well as for real time lymph node assessment. The system employs a super luminescent diode centered at 1310 nm with a bandwidth of 92 nm. Using a spectral domain detection system, the data is acquired at a rate of 5 KHz / axial scan. The sample arm is a galvanometer scanning telecentric probe with an objective lens (f = 60 mm, confocal parameter = 1.5 mm) yielding an axial resolution of 8.3 μm and a transverse resolution of 35.0 μm. Images of tumor margins are acquired in the operating room ex vivo on freshly excised human tissue specimen. This data shows the potential of the use of OCT in defining the structural tumor margins in breast cancer. Images taken from ex-vivo samples on the bench system clearly delineate the differences between clusters of tumor cells and nearby adipose cells. In addition, the data shows the potential for OCT as a diagnostic tool in the staging of cancer metastasis through locoregional lymph node assessment.