Depth-resolved monitoring of diffusion of hyperosmotic agents in normal and malignant human esophagus tissues using optical coherence tomography in-vitro

Depth-resolved monitoring with differentiation and quantification of glucose diffusion in healthy and abnormal esophagus tissues has been studied in vitro. Experiments have been performed using human normal esophagus and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) tissues by the optical coherence tomography (OCT). The images have been continuously acquired for 120 min in the experiments, and the depth-resolved and average permeability coefficients of the 40 % glucose solution have been calculated by the OCT amplitude (OCTA) method. We demonstrate the capability of the OCT technique for depth-resolved monitoring, differentiation, and quantifying of glucose diffusion in normal esophagus and ESCC tissues. It is found that the permeability coefficients of the 40 % glucose solution are not uniform throughout the normal esophagus and ESCC tissues and increase from (3.30 ± 0.09) × 10^-6 and (1.57 ± 0.05) × 10^-5 cm s^-1 at the mucous membrane of normal esophagus and ESCC tissues to (1.82 ± 0.04) × 10^-5 and (3.53 ± 0.09) × 10^-5 cm s^-1 at the submucous layer approximately 742 μm away from the epithelial surface of normal esophagus and ESCC tissues, respectively.