In this paper, we report the feasibility of integrating a novel low cost optical coherence tomography (OCT) system with a dermascope for point-of-care applications. The proposed OCT system is based on an enhanced time-domain optical coherence tomographic system, called multiple reference OCT (MR-OCT), which uses a single miniature voice coil actuator and a partial mirror for extending the axial scan range. The system can simultaneously register both the superficial dermascope image and the depth-resolved OCT sub-surface information by an interactive beam steering method. A practitioner is able to obtain the depth resolved information of the point of interest by simply using the mouse cursor. The proposed approach of combining a dermascope with a low cost OCT provides a unique powerful optical imaging modality for a range of dermatological applications. Hand-held dermascopic OCT devices would also enable point of care and remote health monitoring.
Keywords: (100.2000) Digital image processing; (100.3175) Interferometric imaging; (110.4500) Optical coherence tomography; (130.3120) Integrated optics devices; (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging.