Veterinary Applications of OCT for Cancer Surgery in Dogs and Cats

Surgery is a common cancer treatment performed in dogs and cats. Complete tumor removal results in lower recurrence rates and increased survival. The tumor is assessed after surgery using post-operative histopathology for completeness of the resection. This process takes several days and only evaluates a small portion of the tissues. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a noninvasive optical imaging technique that is an alternative solution for intraoperative surgical margin assessment that allows rapid visualization of the tissue microstructure at the surgical margins.

Laura Selmic and colleagues conducted multiple clinical studies evaluating intraoperative OCT imaging in dogs and cats with soft tissue sarcomas (STSs), mast cell tumors, and mammary tumors. To date, they have found an excellent correlation of normal and abnormal features of surgical margins between OCT and histology. Using OCT for detection of incomplete margins after surgical excision of STS, the sensitivity was 82.5% and the specificity was 93.3%. Results show that OCT has potential for revealing the demarcation between tumor and other normal tissues, including muscle, fat, and skin. Real-time surgical margin imaging could facilitate an immediate surgical intervention if incomplete margins exist, thus minimizing the requirement of adjuvant treatments leading to patient morbidity and a financial commitment for owners.