Optical diagnostics – State of the Art

Excellent results have been achieved in medical optical diagnostics within the last two to four years, the main focus being on the preclinical and laboratory diagnostic fields.In the preclinical field good progress has been made using fluorescence-based monitoring of both cutaneous and subcutaneous large burns. Further experimental results are now available in optical tomography using the latest HF-modulated MCP devices to implement the PDW basic principle. Excellent results have been gained in the animal experiments for fluorescence diagnostics on rheumatic joints and the data resulting from the application of the mathematical deconvolution-technique for tumour monitoring is very encouraging.In laboratory diagnostics the projects have involved the application of optical methods to target nanoparticles on hair follicles, fluorescence-based analysis of biochemical substrate combinations and fluorescence-optical analysis of the cell membrane behaviour under thermal stress. Each of these projects has made a significant contribution to the scientific understanding of the problem on hand.Finally, reference should be made to first results in fused imaging. Images generated by means of optical diagnostics have been fused with conventional radiographs for the first time ever, in such a way that a diagnostic gain was evident in ROC analyses.

ZusammenfassungIn den letzten zwei bis vier Jahren hat es im Bereich der optischen Diagnostik in der Medizin große Entwicklungen mit teilweise exzellenten Resultaten gegeben. Bisherige Grundentwicklungen der NIR-Diaphanoskopie, des Fluoreszenzmonitoring und der optischen Labordiagnostik wurden vertieft, modifiziert und teilweise näher an vorklinische Anwendungen gebracht. Das trifft u.a. auf das Fluoreszenz-Monitoring bei Wundheilprozessen an der Hautoberfläche und auf diaphanoskopische Diagnosemethoden zu (Durchleuchtung, Streulichttomographie, OCT). Aber auch im Forschungsbereich und in der medizinischen Labordiagnostik sind neue Anwendungen des Optical Molecular Imaging zu erwarten.