Soundararajan Srikamal J, Xu Yinghan, Iftimia Nicusor, Zdanski Carlton J, Oldenburg Amy L
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Biomedical Research Imaging Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States.
J Biomed Opt. 2025 Dec;30(12):124502. doi: 10.1117/1.JBO.30.12.124502. Epub 2025 Aug 5.
Airway wall elastography (AWE) is promising for evaluating upper airway obstructive disorders and airway injuries. Technologies for AWE based on endoscopic optical coherence tomography (OCT) provide micron-scale resolution to capture airway wall deformations during tidal breathing. Combined with an intraluminal pressure probe, these technologies can provide quantitative AWE as part of a routine bronchoscopy exam. However, scan times must be of short duration to mitigate risk.
Our objective is to reduce the scan time necessary to perform OCT elastography over a 50 mm length of the airway wall to less than 1 min.
We introduce an innovative, 4D OCT imaging technique that scans in a sawtooth pattern to revisit each axial position of the airway over a diversity of respiratory phases. An anatomical (long-range) OCT system capable of capturing cross-sections of the upper airway was employed in conjunction with an intraluminal pressure catheter. Scanned data are retrospectively sorted into axial bins with high- and low-pressure thresholds used to compute cross-sectional compliance (CC) within each bin across the length of the upper airway.
4D OCT was tested in simulation, on rigid and deformable samples, and on pigs undergoing bronchoscopy. A precise CC measurement with a 0.5 mm sampling resolution over a 50 mm scan length in under 42 s was achieved.
The retrospective, respiratory-gated 4D aOCT scanning method is a minimally invasive technique for measuring airway wall CC. The method exhibited high precision in controlled models, effectively detected elastic heterogeneity, and yielded clinically relevant results in pigs.
气道壁弹性成像（AWE）在评估上气道阻塞性疾病和气道损伤方面具有前景。基于内镜光学相干断层扫描（OCT）的AWE技术提供微米级分辨率，以捕捉潮气呼吸期间气道壁的变形。结合腔内压力探头，这些技术可作为常规支气管镜检查的一部分提供定量AWE。然而，扫描时间必须短，以降低风险。
我们的目标是将在50毫米长的气道壁上进行OCT弹性成像所需的扫描时间缩短至1分钟以内。
我们引入了一种创新的4D OCT成像技术，该技术以锯齿模式扫描，以在不同呼吸阶段重新审视气道的每个轴向位置。将能够捕捉上气道横截面的解剖学（长程）OCT系统与腔内压力导管结合使用。扫描数据被回顾性地分类到轴向箱中，使用高压和低压阈值来计算上气道长度内每个箱内的横截面顺应性（CC）。
4D OCT在模拟、刚性和可变形样本以及接受支气管镜检查的猪身上进行了测试。在42秒内实现了在50毫米扫描长度上以0.5毫米采样分辨率进行精确的CC测量。
回顾性呼吸门控4D aOCT扫描方法是一种用于测量气道壁CC的微创技术。该方法在受控模型中表现出高精度，有效检测到弹性异质性，并在猪身上产生了临床相关结果。
