Willemse Joy, Wener Reinier R, Feroldi Fabio, Vaselli Margherita, Kwakkel-van Erp Johanna M, van de Graaf Eduard A, Thunnissen Erik, de Boer Johannes F
LaserLaB, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
These authors contributed equally.
Biomed Opt Express. 2021 Oct 7;12(11):6796-6813. doi: 10.1364/BOE.435870. eCollection 2021 Nov 1.
A non-invasive diagnostic tool to assess remodeling of the lung airways caused by disease is currently missing in the clinic. Measuring key features such as airway smooth muscle (ASM) thickness would increase the ability to improve diagnosis and enable treatment evaluation. In this research, polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) has been used to image a total of 24 airways from two healthy lungs and four end-stage diseased lungs , including fibrotic sarcoidosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), fibrotic hypersensitivity pneumonitis, and cystic fibrosis. In the diseased lungs, except COPD, the amount of measured airway smooth muscle was increased. In COPD, airway smooth muscle could not be distinguished from surrounding collagen. COPD lungs showed increased alveolar size. 3D pullbacks in the same lumen provided reproducible assessment of airway smooth muscle (ASM). Image features such as thickened ASM and size/presence of alveoli were recognized in histology. The results of this study are preliminary and must be confirmed with further and studies. PS-OCT is applicable for assessment of peribronchial and peribronchiolar lung structures and may become a valuable tool for diagnosis in pulmonology.
临床上目前缺少一种用于评估由疾病引起的肺气道重塑的非侵入性诊断工具。测量气道平滑肌（ASM）厚度等关键特征将提高改善诊断和进行治疗评估的能力。在本研究中，偏振敏感光学相干断层扫描（PS-OCT）已被用于对来自两个健康肺和四个终末期患病肺的总共24个气道进行成像，包括纤维化结节病、慢性阻塞性肺疾病（COPD）、纤维化过敏性肺炎和囊性纤维化。在患病肺中，除了COPD外，测量的气道平滑肌量增加。在COPD中，气道平滑肌无法与周围的胶原蛋白区分开来。COPD肺显示肺泡尺寸增大。在同一管腔内的三维回撤提供了对气道平滑肌（ASM）的可重复评估。组织学上可识别出ASM增厚和肺泡大小/存在等图像特征。本研究结果是初步的，必须通过进一步的研究加以证实。PS-OCT适用于评估支气管周围和细支气管周围的肺结构，可能成为肺病诊断的一种有价值的工具。
