Monitoring of permeability of different analytes in human normal and cancerous bladder tissues in vitro using optical coherence tomography

We report our preliminary results on quantification of glucose and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) diffusion in normal and cancerous human bladder tissues in vitro by using a spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). The permeability coefficients (PCs) of a 30% aqueous solution of glucose are found to be (7.92 ± 0.81) × 10^-6 cm s^-1 and (1.19 ± 0.13) × 10^-5 cm s^-1 in normal and cancerous bladder tissues, respectively. The PCs of 50% DMSO are calculated to be (8.99 ± 0.93) × 10^-6 cm s^-1 and (1.43 ± 0.17) × 10^-5 cm s^-1 in normal and cancerous bladder tissues, respectively. The obtained results show a statistically significant difference in permeability of normal and cancerous tissue and indicate that the PC of 50% DMSO is about 1.13-and 1.21-fold higher than that of 30% glucose in normal bladder and cancerous bladder tissues, respectively. Thus, the quantitative measurements with the help of PCs from OCT images can be a potentially powerful method for bladder cancer detection.