Application of optical coherence microscopy in Hirschsprung's disease diagnosis

Objective: This study was a prospective study on the diagnosis of congenital Hirschsprung's disease (HSCR) using optical coherence microscopy (OCM). Methods: A total of 109 HSCR patients admitted to a Chinese hospital were included and all underwent barium enema angiography preoperatively, and the resected diseased intestinal tubes were evaluated intraoperatively followed by OCM scanning and histopathological examination, and the OCM images were compared with the corresponding tissue sections for analysis. 10 non-HSCR fetal colorectal tissues at the same period were retained for OCM, the characteristics of which with and without HSCR under OCM imaging were analyzed. Results: It showed that the structural features of HSCR tissue could be observed in the OCM images, which is consistent with the corresponding histopathological findings matching. Compared with the pathological findings, the OCM sensitivity, specificity, Kappa value, and AUC area reached 92.66%, 90.00%, 0.627, and 0.913, respectively. Conclusion: OCM, as a non-invasive, high-resolution, real-time rapid imaging technology, has high sensitivity and specificity in congenital megacolon diagnosis, which will provide a more reliable basis for non-invasive diagnosis and pathological classification of patients with congenital megacolon, and has a certain potential for clinical application.