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The diagnosis of internal organ diseases is often based on biopsy specimens taken from the affected areas. But collecting such samples is highly prone to errors because of the inability of current endoscopic imaging techniques to accurately visualize disease sites. Conventional optical elements in catheters used to access difficult areas of the body's access, such as the gastrointestinal tract and the pulmonary airways, are prone to aberrations that obstruct the complete abilities of the body. optical imaging.
Now, endoscopic imaging experts at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and pioneers of flat-metal technology at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), have partnered to develop a new class of endoscopic imaging nano-optical endoscopes called catheters-which exceed the limits of current systems.
The search is described in Nature Photonics .
"The clinical adoption of many advanced endoscopic microscopy modalities has been hampered because of the difficulty of designing miniature catheters that achieve the same image quality as large office microscopes," he said. said Melissa Suter, assistant professor of medicine at the HGM and Harvard Medical School (HMS) and co-lead author of the paper. "The use of nano-optical catheters incorporating metals into their design will likely change the landscape. from the design of optical catheters, resulting in a dramatic increase in the quality, resolution and functionality of endoscopic microscopy. "Metalenses based on flat optics is a new gaming technology because the distortion control of Image needed for high-resolution imaging is simple compared to conventional optics, which requires multiple complex shapes Said Federico Capasso, professor of applied physics to Robert L. Wallace and senior scientist in electrical engineering at SEAS and co-lead author of the paper. "I am confident that this will lead to a new class of optical systems and instruments with a wide range of applications in many fields of science and technology"
"The versatility and design flexibility of the nano-optic endoscope greatly enhance the capabilities of endoscopic imaging and will likely impact diagnostic imaging of internal organs," said Hamid Pahlevaninezhad, an instructor. in medicine at MGH and HMS and co-first author of the paper. . "We have demonstrated an example of these capabilities for obtaining high resolution imaging at a very wide depth of field."
To demonstrate the quality of imaging of the nano-optic endoscope, researchers have imagined the flesh of fruits, pigs and humans. Pulmonary tissue. The team has shown that the nano-optic endoscope can permeate deep into the tissue with a resolution much higher than that of current imaging catheters.
Images captured by the nano-optic endoscope clearly show the cellular structures in the flesh and tissues. fine glands in the bronchial mucosa of pigs and sheep. In human lung tissue, researchers were able to clearly identify the structures that correspond to the fine and irregular glands indicating the presence of adenocarcinoma, the most important type of lung cancer.
"Currently, we are at the mercy of materials that we have no control over the design of high resolution lenses for imaging," said Yao-Wei Huang, a postdoctoral researcher at SEAS and co-first author of the document. "The main advantage of metals is that we can design and adapt its specifications to overcome spherical aberrations and astigmatism and get a very great focus of light, which allows us to obtain a very high resolution with an extended depth of field without complex. Next, researchers are looking to explore other applications of the nano-optic endoscope, including a polarization-sensitive nano-optic endoscope, that could contrast tissue that has highly organized structures, such as smooth muscles, collagen. and blood vessels.
Learn more:
A versatile ultrasound system could transform the way doctors use medical imaging
More information:
Nano-optical endoscope for in vivo high resolution optical coherence tomography, Nature Photonics DOI: 10.1038 / s41566-018-0224-2, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-018 -0224-2
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