Differentiation of Different Nonmelanoma Skin Cancer Types Using OCT.

Background: Early detection of various types of nonmelanoma skin cancer has been a challenge in dermatology. Noninvasive examination procedures such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) play an increasingly important role, besides the established gold standard of histological tissue sample analysis. OCT is a noninvasive, cross-sectional, real-time technique that allows conclusions to be drawn with regard to the presence of pathologies.

Optical coherence tomography for presurgical margin assessment of non-melanoma skin cancer - a practical approach.

In the clinical setting, optical coherence tomography (OCT) is applicable for the non-invasive diagnosis of skin cancer and may in particular be used for margin definition prior to excision. In this regard, OCT may improve the success rate of removing tumor lesions more effectively, preventing repetitive excision, which may subsequently result in smaller excisions. In this study, we have aimed to evaluate the applicability of OCT for in vivo presurgical margin assessment of non-melanocytic skin tumors (NMSC) and to describe the feasibility of different scanning techniques.