Investigation of optical clearing of gastric tissue immersed with hyperosmotic agents

In order to understand the role of water desorption and mass transport process in the optical clearing effect on gastric tissues with the application of hyperosmotic agents, the porcine stomach tissues (pyloric mucosa) applied topically with glycerol and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) are investigated with optical coherence tomography (OCT) and the near infrared reflectance spectroscopy. Three solutions of 80% and 50% glycerol, and 50% DMSO are studied, each of which shows significant improvement in light transmittance and, thus, reduction of the light scattering of tissue. It is found that, among the solutions investigated, 80% glycerol achieves the best clearing effect on improvement of both the light penetration and imaging contrast. More detailed microstructures of the mucosal layer can be observed for glycerol treatment, while these structures are not resolvable by the conventional OCT. Light transmittance is increased by approximately 23% and diffuse reflectance decreased by approximately 24% at 30 min after the topical application of 80% glycerol. 50% DMSO is more effective than 50% glycerol only at the beginning stage; thereafter the rate of optical clearing is slowed down with time. Although DMSO can enhance the light transmittance and thus reduce the scattering, it has a negligible effect on the imaging contrast improvement. The mass transport process of agent to tissue accounts for the different clearing effects for glycerol and DMSO, respectively. It is concluded that the optical clearing by the hyperosmotic agent is strongly correlated with the water desorption kinetics induced by agent and the agent mass transport process within tissue. In other words, the tissue dehydration induced by agent and the refractive index matching between the agent and the main scattering components within tissue facilitated by the agent mass transport are responsible for optical clearing effects.