Optical Cancer Imaging Lab

Screening, Diagnosis, and Therapy with Light

Category: Uncategorized

Congratulations Kimiya!

Congratulations to Kimiya Mousavi on successfully defending her MASc thesis!

Kimiya’s work ‘Label-Free Vital Imaging Of Trophoblast Organoids With Dynamic Optical Coherence Microscopy’ focused on developing imaging techniques to study placental models. Using an OCM system, Kimiya collected high-resolution videos of these organoids and applied three algorithms which generate contrast based on the metabolic activity (motion) within cells.

Kimiya developed quantitative methods to distinguish trophoblast organoids grown under low-oxygen conditions (which mimics complications like preeclampsia) and those grown in normal oxygen levels. This is an important step toward better understanding how the placenta develops under different conditions.

A key advantage of this technique is that it allows researchers to monitor living tissues over time without damaging them. Because it avoids the need for sectioning, staining, or dyes which disrupt biologic systems, it preserves the biology of the system and opens the door to longitudinal studies which could strengthen our understanding of placental health and disease.

June 24, 2026
SPIE Medical Imaging 2026

BCCRI trainees shared their work at SPIE Medical Imaging here in Vancouver.

Fumiya Inaba, a student in the Guillaud lab, is developing deep learning tools to aid pathologists in determining the future prognosis of prostate cancer patients from biopsies.

You can read more here: Instance scoring via distillation of multiple instance classifiers for interpretable digital pathology.

Ian Janzen is developing machine learning tools tailored to a Canadian population to assist radiologists in identifying which of the smallest lung nodules require further intervention.

You can read more here: Applying deep learning and radiomics to diagnostically challenging nodules in LDCT screening programs

Fumi was awarded the Robert F. Wagner all-conference best student paper award for his work! Congratulations Fumi!

February 23, 2026
New publication on OCT biomarkers of oral dysplasia and carcinoma

Jeanie, a PhD student in our lab has a new publication in MDPI Cancers.

Oral cancers are associated with high mortality in advanced stages. Early diagnosis is associated with better patient outcomes, but this is challenging to achieve as benign lesions look similar to lesions of concern, and multiple biopsies may be required to ensure the most pathologic tissue is sampled.

Optical coherence tomography is a noninvasive imaging technique that provides three-dimensional visualization of subsurface tissue structures. We have previously developed an OCT endoscope which can reach most sites in the oral cavity – but assessing large three-dimensional volumes for the features most relevant to oral cancer is challenging.

This work leverages the work of Chloe, a recent Masters student in our lab, who developed a deep learning segmentation tool to rapidly detect the tissue surface and bottom of the epithelium in oral OCT. From these segmentations, we measure seven imaging biomarkers and assess their utility in distinguishing oral pre-cancers and cancers.

Sample imaging of severe dysplasia

August 8, 2024
New publication on endoscopic oral OCT segmentation with deep learning

Congratulations to Chloe, a recent Masters student in our lab for her first publication in MDPI Cancers.

OCT produces a large amount of 3-dimensional data which is hard to quantify manually. This study presents a neural network pipeline to simplify OCT interpretation by providing information about epithelial depth and stratification through simple en face maps. The pipeline’s predictions demonstrate as-good-as or better agreement than inter-rater agreement, suggesting strong predictive power.

Grade 2 dysplasia of the lateral tongue, with an epithelial depth heatmap in (b).

Contralateral image of the lateral tongue, with an epithelial depth heatmap in (b).

June 5, 2024
Double-Clad Fiber article in BioPhotonics

Castor Optics has published a new article on multimodal optical coherence tomography using double-clad fiber in BioPhotonics, citing one of our previous publications. Multimodal OCT often uses double-clad fiber couplers from Castor Optics.

In vivo OCT and autofluorescence imaging (AFI) of human peripheral airways using a double-clad fiber (DCF) coupler. AFI of an airway (a), magnified AFI region (b), and OCT cross sections corresponding to the dashed lines (c-e).

May 24, 2024
SPIE Photonics West 2024
Left to right: Eric, Kimiya, Jeanie, Adrian, Alicia.

OCIL trainees presented work at SPIE Photonics West 2024 in San Francisco, California. You can read more about their presentations here:
- Jeanie Malone: Multipath contrast imaging for oral cancer management
- Adrian Tanskanen: Endobronchial multipath contrast imaging of vascular networks and lung cancer
- Eric Brace: Optical coherence tomography and autofluorescence guided biopsy of small airways using a suction-snare biopsy tool
- Alicia Fung: Segmental airway phantom for endobronchial optical coherence tomography
February 22, 2024
Multipath artifacts enable angular contrast in multimodal endoscopic optical coherence tomography

Congratulations to Adrian and Jeanie on their new publication in Optics Express.

This work quantifies and suggests that there is utility in multipath artifacts found in double-clad fiber based OCT systems. While these artifacts appear as a smear in the A-line direction, they can be projected into a high-quality (and unique) en face image when compared to the fundamental mode image.

The angular dependence of the fundamental image and higher order image generated by the multipath artifact lays the basis for multipath contrast, a ratiometric measurement of differential coupling which provides information regarding the angular diversity of a sample. ultipath contrast images can be generated from OCT data where multipath artifacts are present, meaning that a wealth of clinical data can be retrospectively examined.

December 12, 2023