Multi-contrast laser endoscopy for in vivo gastrointestinal imaging

TL;DR

Multi-contrast Laser Endoscopy (MLE) enhances gastrointestinal tissue imaging by providing multiple contrast modalities, demonstrating significant improvements in polyp detection contrast during in vivo colonoscopies.

Contribution

The paper introduces MLE, a novel platform that combines multispectral, speckle, and photometric imaging for improved tissue contrast in endoscopy.

Findings

MLE achieves approximately three-fold contrast improvement in polyp imaging.

MLE provides a five-fold enhancement in color difference over traditional methods.

In vivo tests during colonoscopies validate MLE's clinical potential.

Abstract

White light endoscopy is the clinical gold standard for detecting diseases in the gastrointestinal tract. Most applications involve identifying visual abnormalities in tissue color, texture, and shape. Unfortunately, the contrast of these features is often subtle, causing many clinically relevant cases to go undetected. To overcome this challenge, we introduce Multi-contrast Laser Endoscopy (MLE): a platform for widefield clinical imaging with rapidly tunable spectral, coherent, and directional illumination. We demonstrate three capabilities of MLE: enhancing tissue chromophore contrast with multispectral diffuse reflectance, quantifying blood flow using laser speckle contrast imaging, and characterizing mucosal topography using photometric stereo. We validate MLE with benchtop models, then demonstrate MLE in vivo during clinical colonoscopies. MLE images from 31 polyps demonstrate an approximate three-fold improvement in contrast and a five-fold improvement in color difference compared to white light and narrow band imaging. With the ability to reveal multiple complementary types of tissue contrast while seamlessly integrating into the clinical environment, MLE shows promise as an investigative tool to improve gastrointestinal imaging.