Endoscopic Multifunctional Optical Coherence Tomography for Airway Tissue Injury Management

Project Summary/AbstractInhalation injury is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in the civilian population. It is usually caused by the inhalation of smoke or toxic gases, such as carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen dioxide, etc. Bronchoscopy is currently used as a standard approach for inhalation injury assessment. However, it fails to provide submucosal and functional tissue information, both of which are essential for proper triage and selection of appropriate therapy. Physical Sciences Inc., in collaboration with the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, proposes to develop a novel Endoscopic Multifunctional Optical Coherence Tomography instrument for Airway Tissue Injury Management that will provide clinicians with real-time feedback regarding the morphological and functional changes of the injured tissue. This instrument will complement qualitative bronchoscopic findings with quantitative submucosal morphological and functional information, such as ciliary activity and compliance, which will enable more efficient screening, triage, and therapeutic guidance of inhalation exposures.The goal of the Phase I program is to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed technology for airway inhalation injury assessment, while in Phase II an advanced clinical instrument will be proposed to be developed and preliminarily tested on human patients of acute inhalation injury.Project NarrativeSuccessful completion of this program will lead to a novel tool for airway injury assessment, which will allow for efficient patient triage and inform guidance and monitoring of therapy. Therefore, it has a potentially high impact on inhalation injury management and will significantly reduce morbidity, mortality, and hospitalization costs. Additional potential applications of this technology also include lung transplant airway assessment, evaluation of the extent of aerodigestive malignancies, as well as the guidance of endobronchial biopsies.