FFOCT for the Diagnosis of Prostate Cancer

Research in optical imaging has led to the development of the Full Field Optical Coherence Tomography (FFOCT) technology, which allows to image fresh tissues up to a depth of a few hundreds microns. The system is a microscope coupled with an interferometer. A halogen light source is used to illuminate the tissue specimen and a reference mirror. The light retro diffused by the specimen is combined with the light reflected by the mirror, and the interference signal is measured. Multiple Grey scale images are obtained and automatically stitched to obtain a complete slide throughout the specimen. The feasibility of the technique has been reported in various pilot studies, as well as the absence of any potential tissue harm and subsequent pathological artifact caused by the process. FFOCT could be used as an additional detection tool for prostate cancer screening. The use of extended systematic trans-rectal ultrasound-guided (TRUS) prostate biopsies has led to over-diagnosis and over-treatment. Also, the number of unnecessary biopsies has increased, along with the morbidity of the procedure. Performing a "pre-pathological" evaluation of biopsy cores during the biopsy procedure would be of significant help to determine the nature of targeted areas and guide the number of biopsies to perform. We hypothesize that FFOCT imaging of prostate biopsy cores would allow a cancer detection rate not statistically different from pathological analysis.