G Y Wu

In vivo quantification of propylene glycol, glucose and glycerol diffusion in human skin with optical coherence tomography

The purpose of study is to quantify and compare diffusion of propylene glycol, glucose, glycerol in the human skin in vivo noninvasively. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) was utilized in the functional imaging of optical cleaning agents for monitoring and quantifying the permeability coefficients (PCs) of them. Our experiments showed that the permeability coefficient of 40% propylene glycol from different subjects was averaged and found to be (2.52 ± 0.02) × 10−6 cm/s, the permeability coefficient of 40% glucose was (1.94 ± 0.05) × 10−6 cm/s, and the permeability coefficient of 40% glycerol was (1.82 ± 0.04) × 10−6 cm/s. The results indicated that the diffusion of propylene glycol solutions was faster than that of glucose solution, and the diffusion of glucose solutions was faster than that of glycerol solutions. The dependence of the permeability on the different hyperosmotic analytes could potentially be used in various basic science and clinical fields, such as optical clearing of tissues and cells as well as in clinical pharmacology.

Investigation of the permeability and optical clearing ability of different analytes in human normal and cancerous breast tissues by spectral domain OCT.

The potential of OCT applied for early breast cancer detection attracted significant efforts. The permeability coefficients and the percentages of OCT signal enhancement for normal and cancerous breast tissues have been investigated from the experiments of 20% glucose, 40% glucose, and 20% mannitol in vitro. Obtained results indicate that the permeability coefficient in breast cancer tissue is prominently larger than that in normal breast tissue, while the optical clearing effect is just the reverse to that for each agent. The results suggest that OCT has the ability to distinguish cancer tissue from different aspect.

In Vivo Comparison of the Optical Clearing Efficacy of Optical Clearing Agents in Human Skin by Quantifying Permeability Using Optical Coherence Tomography

The objective of this work is to quantify and compare the optical clearing efficacy of glucose, propylene glycol, glycerol solutions through the human skin tissue in vivo by calculating permeability coefficient of three solutions. Currently, the permeability coefficient of agent in tissues was extracted from optical coherence tomography (OCT) amplitude data mainly through the OCT signal slope and the OCT amplitude methods. In this study, we report the OCT attenuation coefficient method which is a relatively novel and rarely reported methodology to measure the permeability coefficient during the optical skin clearing procedure. The permeability coefficients for 40% propylene glycol, glucose and glycerol were (2.74 ± 0.05) × 10−6 cm s−1, (1.78 ± 0.04) × 10−6 cm s−1 and (1.67 ± 0.04) × 10−6 cm s−1, respectively. It could be clearly seen that the permeability coefficient of the 40% propylene glycol solution is higher than that of 40% glucose solution, and the permeability coefficient of the 40% glucose solution is higher than that of the 40% glycerol solution. These indicate 40% propylene glycol solution is more effective than others in the human skin in vivo. We then compare and prove consistency of optical clearing efficacy figured out by three different methods.

Quantification of Glucose Diffusion in Human Lung Tissues by Using Fourier Domain Optical Coherence Tomography

In this study, we report permeability coefficients of 30% glucose diffusion by the optical coherence tomography signal slope (OCTSS) method in four kinds of human lung tissue in vitro: normal lung tissue, benign granulomatosis lung tissue, squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma tumor. To quantify the permeability coefficient of the agent, the monitored region was 80 μm thickness at a tissue depth of ca 230 μm from the surface. The permeability coefficients of 30% glucose from 10 independent experiments were averaged and found to be (1.35 ± 0.13) × 10−5 cm s−1 from the normal lung tissue, (1.78 ± 0.21) × 10−5 cm s−1 from the benign granulomatosis lung tissue, (2.88 ± 0.19) × 10−5 cm s−1 from the adenocarcinoma tumor and (3.53 ± 0.25) × 10−5 cm s−1 from the squamous cell carcinoma, respectively. It could be clearly seen that the permeability coefficients of 30% glucose increase ca 32%, 113% and 162% in the benign granulomatosis, adenocarcinoma tumor and squamous cell carcinoma of human lung tissue compared with that from the normal lung tissue, respectively. Therefore, we inferred from this pilot study that the OCT imaging is a feasible method to distinguish normal and cancer lung tissue.

Heat treatment of human esophageal tissues: Effect on esophageal cancer detection using oxygenated hemoglobin diffuse reflectance ratio

The main objective of the present work is to study the influence of heat treatment on the esophageal cancer detection using the diffuse reflectance (DR) spectral intensity ratio R540/R575 of oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO2) absorption bands to distinguish the epithelial tissues of normal human esophagus and moderately differentiated esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) at different heat treatment temperature of 20, 37, 42, 50, and 60°C, respectively. The DR spectra for the epithelial tissues of the normal esophagus and ESCC in vitro at different heat-treatment temperature in the wavelength range 400–650 nm were measured with a commercial optical fiber spectrometer. The results indicate that the average DR spectral intensity overall enhancement with concomitant increase of heat-treatment temperature for the epithelial tissues of normal esophagus and ESCC, but the average DR spectral intensity for the normal esophageal epithelial tissues is relatively higher than that for ESCC epithelial tissues at the same heat-treatment temperature. The mean R540/R575 ratios of ESCC epithelial tissues were always lower than that of normal esophageal epithelial tissues at the same temperature, and the mean R540/R575 ratios of the epithelial tissues of the normal esophagus and ESCC were decreasing with the increase of different heat-treatment temperatures. The differences in the mean R540/R575 ratios between the epithelial tissues of normal esophagus and ESCC were 13.33, 13.59, 11.76, and 11.11% at different heat-treatment temperature of 20, 37, 42, and 50°C, respectively. These results also indicate that the DR intensity ratio R540/R575 of the hemoglobin bands is a useful tool for discrimination between the epithelial tissues of normal esophagus and ESCC in the temperature range from room temperature to 50°C, but it was non-effective at 60°C or over 60°C.

Oxygenated hemoglobin diffuse reflectance ratio for in vitro detection of human gastric pre-cancer

Oxygenated hemoglobin diffuse reflectance (DR) ratio (R540/R575) method based on DR spectral signatures is used for early diagnosis of malignant lesions of human gastric epithelial tissues in vitro. The DR spectra for four different kinds of gastric epithelial tissues were measured using a spectrometer with an integrating sphere detector in the spectral range from 400 to 650 nm. The results of measurement showed that the average DR spectral intensity for the epithelial tissues of normal stomach is higher than that for the epithelial tissues of chronic and malignant stomach and that for the epithelial tissues of chronic gastric ulcer is higher than that for the epithelial tissues of malignant stomach. The average DR spectra for four different kinds of gastric epithelial tissues show dips at 542 and 577 nm owing to absorption from oxygenated Hemoglobin (HbO2). The differences in the mean R540/R575 ratios of HbO2 bands are 6.84% between the epithelial tissues of normal stomach and chronic gastric ulcer, 14.7% between the epithelial tissues of normal stomach and poorly differentiated gastric adenocarcinoma and 22.6% between the epithelial tissues of normal stomach and undifferentiated gastric adenocarcinoma. It is evident from results that there were significant differences in the mean R540/R575 ratios of HbO2 bands for four different kinds of gastric epithelial tissues in vitro (P < 0.01).

Effect of differently sized nanoparticles’ accumulation on the optical properties of ex vivo normal and adenomatous human colon tissue with OCT imaging and diffuse reflectance spectra

Using optical coherence tomography (OCT) and diffuse reflectance spectra, we investigated the dynamics of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles, of different sizes, when penetrating and accumulating in human normal colon tissue (NC) and adenomatous colon tissue (AC). The process of nanoparticle penetration and accumulation in biotissue is accompanied by changes in the optical properties of tissue. Continuous OCT monitoring showed that, after application of TiO2 nanoparticles, the OCT signal intensities of NC and ac both increase with time, and the larger nanoparticles tend to produce a greater signal enhancement in the same type of tissue. The average attenuation coefficient decreased from 4.03 ± 0.36 to 2.68 ± 0.24 mm−1 at approximately 127 min for NC with 60 nm TiO2, from 4.14 ± 0.38 to 2.91 ± 0.27 mm−1 at about 148 min for NC with 100 nm TiO2, from 8.49 ± 0.77 to 3.54 ± 0.34 mm−1 at about 110 min for AC with 60 nm TiO2, and from 8.61 ± 0.79 to 3.89 ± 0.41 mm−1 at about 128 min for AC with 100 nm TiO2, respectively. Spectral measurements confirm that the nanoparticles penetrate and accumulate in NC and AC. The results suggest that the penetration and accumulation of TiO2 nanoparticles have significant effects on the optical properties of NC and AC.

Electroporation-assisted penetration of zinc oxide nanoparticles in ex vivo normal and cancerous human colon tissue

In this study, we presented the research of the penetration of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) (30 and 90 nm), and electroporation (EP) assisted penetration of the ZnO NPs in the human normal colon (NC) and adenomatous colon (AC) tissues studied with optical coherence tomography (OCT) and diffuse reflectance (DR) measurement. The results have shown that the attenuation coefficient of colon tissue after the application of 30 or 90 nm ZnO NPs alone decreased approximately by 28% and 14% for NC tissue, 35% and 22% for AC tissue, respectively; while the attenuation coefficient of colon tissue after combined application of 30 or 90 nm ZnO NPs/EP decreased approximately by 46% and 30% for NC tissue, and 53% and 42% for AC tissue, respectively. The results illustrate EP can significantly increase the penetration of ZnO NPs in the colon tissue, especially in AC tissue. Through the analysis of attenuation coefficient and reflectance intensity of the colon tissue, we find that the accumulation of the ZnO NPs in the colon tissue greatly influenced the tissue optical properties.