Quantification of structural and microvascular changes for diagnosing early-stage oral cancer

Ping-Hsien Chen; Yu-Ju Chen; Yi-Fen Chen; Yi-Chen Yeh; Kuo-Wei Chang; Ming-Chih Hou; Wen-Chuan Kuo

doi:10.1364/BOE.384608

Quantification of structural and microvascular changes for diagnosing early-stage oral cancer

Biomed Opt Express. 2020 Feb 3;11(3):1244-1256. doi: 10.1364/BOE.384608. eCollection 2020 Mar 1.

Authors

Ping-Hsien Chen^{1

2

3

4}, Yu-Ju Chen^{3

4}, Yi-Fen Chen⁵, Yi-Chen Yeh^{2

6}, Kuo-Wei Chang^{5

7

8}, Ming-Chih Hou^{2

9}, Wen-Chuan Kuo³

Affiliations

¹ Endoscopy Center for Diagnosis and Treatment, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
² Department of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
³ Institute of Biophotonics, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
⁴ These authors contributed equally to this work.
⁵ Institute of Oral Biology, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
⁶ Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
⁷ Department of Dentistry, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
⁸ Department of Stomatology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
⁹ Department of Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei 112, Taiwan.

Abstract

Changes in mucosal microvascular networks, called intraepithelial papillary capillary loops (IPCL), are an important key factor for diagnosing early-stage oral cancer in vivo. Nevertheless, there are a lack of tools to quantify these changes objectively. This is the first study to quantify the IPCL changes in vivo to differentiate benign or malignant oral lesions by the optical coherence tomography (OCT) technique. K14-EGFP-miR-211-GFP transgenic mice were inducted by 4-Nitroquinoline-1-oxide to produce oral carcinogenesis in different stages, including normal, premalignancy and cancer. The results showed significant differentiation between benign or malignant lesions by OCT quantitative parameters, including epithelial thickness, IPCL density, radius and tortuosity.