Iyer Janani S, Yin Biwei, Stankovic Konstantina M, Tearney Guillermo J
Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School, 243 Charles St, Boston, MA, 02114, USA.
Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 1350 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA.
Sci Rep. 2021 Sep 9;11(1):17932. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-95991-8.
Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) is one of the most profound public health concerns of the modern era, affecting 466 million people today, and projected to affect 900 million by the year 2050. Advances in both diagnostics and therapeutics for SNHL have been impeded by the human cochlea's inaccessibility for in vivo imaging, resulting from its extremely small size, convoluted coiled configuration, fragility, and deep encasement in dense bone. Here, we develop and demonstrate the ability of a sub-millimeter-diameter, flexible endoscopic probe interfaced with a micro-optical coherence tomography (μOCT) imaging system to enable micron-scale imaging of the inner ear's sensory epithelium in cadaveric human inner ears.
感音神经性听力损失（SNHL）是现代社会最严重的公共卫生问题之一，目前影响着4.66亿人，预计到2050年将影响9亿人。由于人类耳蜗体积极小、呈盘绕状、结构脆弱且深埋于致密骨中，难以进行体内成像，这阻碍了SNHL诊断和治疗方法的进展。在此，我们开发并展示了一种直径小于一毫米的柔性内窥探头与微光学相干断层扫描（μOCT）成像系统相结合的技术，该技术能够对尸体人内耳的感觉上皮进行微米级成像。
