Intraoperative imaging based on common-path time-domain reflectometry for brain tumor surgery

Minimally invasive intraoperative imaging plays a crucial role in delicate microsurgeries for precise operation monitoring in which fiber optic imaging can be considered as an endoscopy and surgical proximity guidance tool due to its compactness. This paper presents a near-infrared time -domain reflectometric common-path optical coherence tomography imaging technique using a bare-fiber probe mounted directly on a scanning galvanometer. The common-path setup allows the use of a freely adjustable optical path length and a disposable fiber probe, as well as eliminating the need for an additional dedicated reference optical path. Experimental results demonstrate clear discrimination between the brain tumor tissue and the normal tissue for mouse brains with the images acquired in real-time over a wide area. The proposed method enables real-time and in situ visualization of tumor resection for intraoperative imaging, and this study demonstrates the feasibility of its application to microsurgical interventions.