Abstract

We report the use of indocyanine green (ICG), a FDA approved dye routinely used in angiography procedures, as a contrast agent for molecular contrast optical coherence tomography (MCOCT). We introduce “spectral triangulation” as an enhancement to spectroscopic OCT which acquires 3 consecutive OCT scans at three even spaced wavelength intervals centered at an absorption maximum a molecular dye of interest. We then extract a difference image based on the two scans, which reveals the distribution of the molecule within the target sample. We demonstrate the operation of this MCOCT modality in a target sample containing a mixture of 0.25% (vol. conc.) 0.1 μm latex microspheres and 60 μM of ICG.

© 2004 Optical Society of America