Beaudette Kathy, Baac Hyoung Won, Madore Wendy-Julie, Villiger Martin, Godbout Nicolas, Bouma Brett E, Boudoux Caroline
Centre d'Optique Photonique et Lasers, Polytechnique Montreal, Department of Engineering Physics, Montreal, QC H3C 3A7, Canada ; Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA.
Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA ; School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea.
Biomed Opt Express. 2015 Mar 16;6(4):1293-303. doi: 10.1364/BOE.6.001293. eCollection 2015 Apr 1.
Double-clad fiber (DCF) is herein used in conjunction with a double-clad fiber coupler (DCFC) to enable simultaneous and co-registered optical coherence tomography (OCT) and laser tissue coagulation. The DCF allows a single channel fiber-optic probe to be shared: i.e. the core propagating the OCT signal while the inner cladding delivers the coagulation laser light. We herein present a novel DCFC designed and built to combine both signals within a DCF (>90% of single-mode transmission; >65% multimode coupling). Potential OCT imaging degradation mechanisms are also investigated and solutions to mitigate them are presented. The combined DCFC-based system was used to induce coagulation of an ex vivo swine esophagus allowing a real-time assessment of thermal dynamic processes. We therefore demonstrate a DCFC-based system combining OCT imaging with laser coagulation through a single fiber, thus enabling both modalities to be performed simultaneously and in a co-registered manner. Such a system enables endoscopic image-guided laser marking of superficial epithelial tissues or laser thermal therapy of epithelial lesions in pathologies such as Barrett's esophagus.
双包层光纤（DCF）在此与双包层光纤耦合器（DCFC）结合使用，以实现同步和共配准的光学相干断层扫描（OCT）和激光组织凝固。DCF允许共享单个通道的光纤探头：即，芯部传播OCT信号，而内包层传输凝固激光。我们在此展示了一种新颖的DCFC，其设计和制造目的是在DCF内合并两个信号（单模传输>90%；多模耦合>65%）。还研究了潜在的OCT成像退化机制，并提出了减轻这些机制的解决方案。基于DCFC的组合系统用于诱导离体猪食管的凝固，从而能够实时评估热动态过程。因此，我们展示了一种基于DCFC的系统，该系统通过单根光纤将OCT成像与激光凝固相结合，从而使两种模式能够同时并以共配准的方式进行。这样的系统能够对浅表上皮组织进行内镜图像引导的激光标记，或对诸如巴雷特食管等病理中的上皮病变进行激光热疗。
