Open AccessCorrelation of the derivative as a robust estimator of scatterer size in optical coherence tomography (OCT) [Invited]
Author(s) -
Michalis Kassinopoulos,
Evgenia Bousi,
Ioanna Zouvani,
Costas Pitris
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
biomedical optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.362
H-Index - 86
ISSN - 2156-7085
DOI - 10.1364/boe.8.001598
Subject(s) - optical coherence tomography , optics , estimator , metric (unit) , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , mie scattering , diffuse optical imaging , tomography , correlation , physics , materials science , computer science , mathematics , light scattering , statistics , scattering , operations management , geometry , economics
The size-dependent spectral variations, predicted by Mie theory, have already been considered as a contrast enhancement mechanism in optical coherence tomography. In this work, a new spectroscopic metric, the bandwidth of the correlation of the derivative, was developed for estimating scatterer size which is more robust and accurate compared to existing methods. Its feasibility was demonstrated using phantoms containing polystyrene microspheres as well as images of normal and cancerous human colon. The results are very promising, suggesting that the proposed metric could be utilized for measuring nuclear size distribution, a diagnostically valuable marker, in human tissues.