Optical coherence tomography imaging during thyroid and parathyroid surgery: a novel system of tissue identification and differentiation to obviate tissue resection and frozen section.

Background: Optical coherence tomography (OCT) allows tissue histologic-like evaluation, but without tissue fixation or staining. We investigated OCT images from tissues obtained at thyroid and parathyroid surgeries to provide a preliminary assessment as to whether these images contain sufficient information for recognition and differentiation of normal neck tissues.

Methods: Normal tissues were obtained from patients undergoing surgical treatment.