Optical coherence tomography of the urinary bladder: The potential of a high-resolution visual investigation technique for endoscopic diagnostics

An endoscopic setup for optical coherence tomographic investigation of the urinary bladder is presented. The specific features of intravital investigation are considered. The resolving power of the method (15 μm) allows one to obtain a two-dimensional image up to 2.5 mm in depth of the normal mucous membrane and to determine pathological changes at the initial stage of a disease of the urinary bladder. A comparative description of optical tomograms of the anatomical structure of the bladder wall is performed. The merits and drawbacks of the new technique are discussed. The problems of evaluation of results and reasons for difficulty of interpretation of images are analyzed. Ways to increase the resolving power and the informativeness of the method, which, in the future, may become a technique for in vivo optical histological investigations, are proposed.