Low-coherence interferometry and optical coherence tomography for image-guided surgical treatment of solid tumors

1. A method of forming an image of tissue, comprising:

beginning an invasive procedure on a patient exposing tissue;

acquiring tomographic OCT data via an optical fiber from an interface between the optical fiber and the exposed tissue;

converting the tomographic OCT data, inside and outside a confocal volume, by full-field inverse scattering solution of amplitude and phase information obtained at the interface into at least one volumetric image incorporating tissue-characterizing information along both a depth axis and a transverse direction,

wherein a sample susceptibility is found so as to minimize a difference between a forward scatter operator applied to the sample susceptibility and a data function, D(r;k), that is proportional to a scatter field measured at any position in a detector plane; and

ending the invasive procedure after the converting of the tomographic OCT data into the at least one image.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising performing data analysis on the at least one image before the ending of the invasive procedure.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the data analysis includes classifying the exposed tissue imaged using the OCT data.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the OCT data is run through classification algorithms used to classify the exposed tissue imaged.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the classification algorithms analyze the OCT data and classify the exposed tissue imaged using an optical property which is derived from the OCT data.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the optical property is one of a refractive index, a scattering profile, a scattering coefficient, an anisotropy factor, birefringence, a spectral shift, texture, a Doppler shift, a phase resolution, a phase-resolved Doppler measurement, a phase-resolved spectroscopic measurement, a light scattering parameter, and spectroscopic absorption.

7. The method of claim 2 , wherein the data analysis includes enhancing the at least one image.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the invasive procedure is a surgery.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tissue is breast tissue, lung tissue, prostate tissue, colon tissue, brain tissue, thyroid tissue, liver tissue, kidney tissue, skin tissue, or lymph node tissue.

10. A method of analyzing tissue comprising:

beginning an invasive procedure on a patient exposing tissue;

acquiring OCT data via an optical fiber from an interface between the optical fiber and the exposed tissue;

converting the tomographic OCT data, inside and outside a confocal volume, by full-field inverse scattering solution of amplitude and phase information obtained at the interface into at least one volumetric image incorporating tissue-characterizing information along both a depth axis and a transverse direction,

wherein a sample susceptibility is found so as to minimize a difference between a forward scatter operator applied to the sample susceptibility and a data function, D(r;k), that is proportional to a scatter field measured at any position in a detector plane;

classifying the exposed tissue as well as tissue underlying the exposed tissue upon analyzing a volumetric representation of the OCT data; and

ending the invasive procedure after the classifying of the exposed and underlying tissue.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising upon classifying the exposed and underlying tissue, and determining tumor margins for that exposed and underlying tissue.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising performing further invasive procedures.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising removing tissue if the tumor margins are positive.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the exposed and underlying tissue is lymph node tissue.

15. The method of claim 14 comprising removing a lymph node which includes the exposed tissue, if the tumor margins are determined to be cancerous.

16. The method of claim 14 further comprising classifying the exposed tissue as either normal, reactive, or tumor-bearing.

17. The method of claim 10 , further comprising guiding a biopsy needle into the exposed tissue upon classifying the exposed tissue.

18. The method of claim 10 , wherein the exposed tissue is living.

19. The method of claim 10 , wherein the patient is living.

20. A method of removing tissue from a patient comprising:

beginning an invasive procedure on the patient exposing tissue;

acquiring OCT data via an optical fiber from an interface between the optical fiber and the exposed tissue and from tissue underlying the exposed tissue;

converting the tomographic OCT data, inside and outside a confocal volume, by full-field inverse scattering solution of amplitude and phase information obtained at the interface into at least one volumetric image incorporating tissue-characterizing information along both a depth axis and a transverse direction,

wherein a sample susceptibility is found so as to minimize a difference between a forward scatter operator applied to the sample susceptibility and a data function, D(r;k), that is proportional to a scatter field measured at any position in a detector plane;

volumetrically analyzing the OCT data;

determining tumor margins for the analyzed OCT data; and

removing tissue from within the tumor margins from the patient.

21. The method of claim 20 , wherein the removed tissue comprises diseased tissue.