Technologies

Technology Overview

OHSU has developed technology for optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging that extends OCT’s depth imaging range, enables real time flow imaging, and further enables optical coherence angiography.

In vivo three-dimensional mapping of biologic tissue and vasculature is a challenging proposition due to the highly-scattering and absorptive nature of biologic tissue. Some current imaging methods have slow scanning speeds making in vivo three-dimensional imaging difficult. Other techniques having faster scanning speeds are not able to scan deeply into biologic tissue without producing overlapped images, requiring the use of invasive procedures to scan the tissue of interest. Techniques aimed at deeper imaging generally cannot provide deep imaging of tissue having moving material (e.g., blood flow).

OCT is effectively optical ultrasound. It can provide tissue morphology at a much higher resolution than MRI or ultrasound, is fast and real-time label free (no radiation), and is non-invasive with no photo damage. OCT is current used clinically for high resolution retina imagery and has been commercially available since 1996 from Zeiss-Humphrey.