Optical coherence tomography system for the examination of human or animal tissue or of organs

Abstract

An optical coherence tomography system for the examination of human or animal tissue or of organs includes a catheter insertable into the tissue or organ, by which light is introduced into the tissue or organ and the reflection is transmitted to an evaluation unit, where the reflection and a reference light are evaluated interferometrically to determine a two-dimensional cross-sectional view of the tissue or organ under examination. The evaluation unit uses several two-dimensional cross-sectional views to derive a three-dimensional view of the tissue or organ under examination. A position sensor is contained on or in the tip of the catheter, and a position-determining system derives position data, which describe the current position of the position sensor in the coordinate system of the position-determining system. The position-determining system also captures position data regarding the spatial position of the cross-sectional views in the coordinate system of the position-determining system, and the evaluation system derives the three-dimensional view from the cross-sectional views and the corresponding position data.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to an optical coherence tomography system for examining tissues or organs of a human body or an animal, which includes a catheter introduced into the tissue or organ, through which light is incident into the tissue or organ, and the reflected light is transmitted to a A processing device, in which the reflected light and the reference light are interferometrically processed to obtain a two-dimensional cross-sectional image of the section of the tissue or organ under inspection, wherein the processing device is configured to reproduce the tissue under inspection by means of a plurality of two-dimensional cross-sectional images or a three-dimensional stereoscopic image of an organ, and wherein at least one position sensor is arranged at or within the tip of the catheter, and also includes a position acquisition system for acquiring position data describing the coordinate system of the position sensor in the position acquisition system ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0004] However, the shortcoming of the currently known coherence tomography system is that due to the lack of information about the spatial positions of the cross-sectional images, the cross-sectional images are observed and processed in parallel and adjacent to each other during 3D stereoscopic reproduction, which leads to The straight 3D stereoscopic is reproduced in the coiled and intertwined blood vessels

Although the doctor obtains a three-dimensional impression, the stereoscopic image does not show the actual three-dimensional extension and changes of the inspected blood vessels or organs, and thus cannot show the possible changes, extensions, and actual positions of pathological structures. Therefore, according to such a 3D stereoscopic Images yield only limited plausible diagnoses

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