Discrimination of healthy oral tissue from oral cancer based on the mean grey value determined by optical coherence tomography.

Objective: This study aimed to identify a quantitative index for optical coherence tomography (OCT) images to discriminate tumours from surrounding tissues.

Subjects And Methods: Based on OCT measurements, mean grey values were determined from 432 locations on fifty-four human tissue specimens (eighteen cancerous, para-cancerous, and normal tissues each). These results were histologically evaluated by hematoxylin and eosin staining (H&E).

Results: The mean grey values of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) measurements were significantly different from those of the surrounding healthy tissue (p value < 0.0001), with the former being higher. The sensitivity and specificity of detecting tumourous tissue using this approach were 93 and 94%, respectively.

Conclusions: OCT as a non-invasive, real-time imaging method, correlates well with H&E pathological images. It can effectively distinguish squamous cell carcinoma from normal tissues with high sensitivity and specificity and is thus expected to assist and guide tumour margin evaluation.

Clinical Relevance: This discovery highlights the potential of OCT in the objective evaluation of tumour margin during surgery.