Accuracy of in vivo multi-modal optical imaging for detection of oral neoplasia

If detected early, oral cancer is eminently curable. However, survival rates for oral cancer patients remain low, largely due to late stage diagnosis and subsequent difficulty of treatment. To improve clinicians’ ability to detect early disease and to treat advanced cancers, we developed a multi-modal optical imaging system (MMIS) to evaluate tissue in situ , at macroscopic and microscopic scales. The MMIS was used to measure anatomical 100 sites in 30 patients, correctly classifying 98% of pathologically confirmed normal tissue sites, and 95% of sites graded as moderate dysplasia, severe dysplasia, or cancer. When used alone, MMIS classification accuracy was 35% for sites determined by pathology as mild dysplasia. However, MMIS measurements correlated with expression of candidate molecular markers in 87% of sites with mild dysplasia. These findings support the ability of non-invasive multi-modal optical imaging to accurately identify neoplastic tissue and pre-malignant lesions. This in turn may have considerable impact on detection and treatment of patients with oral cancer and other epithelial malignancies.