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Cancer imaging by optical coherence tomography: preclinical progress and clinical potential

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 12, pages 363–368 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

The past decade has seen dramatic technological advances in the field of optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging. These advances have driven commercialization and clinical adoption in ophthalmology, cardiology and gastrointestinal cancer screening. Recently, an array of OCT-based imaging tools that have been developed for preclinical intravital cancer imaging applications has yielded exciting new capabilities to probe and to monitor cancer progression and response in vivo. Here, we review these results, forecast the future of OCT for preclinical cancer imaging and discuss its exciting potential to translate to the clinic as a tool for monitoring cancer therapy.

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Figure 1: Microstructural OCT imaging of tumours.
Figure 2: Imaging of tumour angiogenesis using OCT.

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Acknowledgements

US National Institutes of Health grants 5K25CA127465 (to B.J.V.), P01-CA080124 (to R.K.J. and D.F.), R01-CA126642 (to R.K.J.), R01-CA096915 (to D.F.), S10-RR027070 (to D.F.), a Federal Share Income Grant (to R.K.J. and D.F.), and Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Innovator Award W81XWH-10-1-0016 (to R.K.J.). This project was supported by the Center for Biomedical OCT Research and Translation through Grant Number P41EB015903, awarded by the National Center for Research Resources and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the US National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Benjamin J. Vakoc and Brett E. Bouma are at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine and the Department of Dermatology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA.,

    Benjamin J. Vakoc & Brett E. Bouma

  2. Benjamin J. Vakoc and Brett E. Bouma are also at the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA.,

    Benjamin J. Vakoc & Brett E. Bouma

  3. Department of Radiation Oncology, Dai Fukumura and Rakesh K. Jain are at the Edwin L. Steele Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA.,

    Dai Fukumura & Rakesh K. Jain

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Correspondence to Benjamin J. Vakoc.

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Competing interests

B.J.V. and B.E.B. are inventors on patents, owned by the Massachusetts General Hospital, USA, related to the imaging apparatus used in this research. R.K.J. receives research grant funding from Dyax, MedImmune and Roche; is a consultant for Dyax and Noxxon; is on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Enlight, SynDevRx; is on the Board of Trustees of H&Q Capital Management; and is a cofounder of Xtuit Pharmaceuticals. D.F. declares no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary information S1 (movie)

Time-lapse angiography and microstructural imaging of tumours in response to VEGFR2 blockade (MOV 2613 kb)

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Vakoc, B., Fukumura, D., Jain, R. et al. Cancer imaging by optical coherence tomography: preclinical progress and clinical potential. Nat Rev Cancer 12, 363–368 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3235

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