Imaging prostate tumor spheroids longitudinally with dynamic contrast line-field optical coherence tomography (LF-dOCT)

The most prevalent cancer in Canadian men is prostate cancer. While cancer behavior has been studied extensively with 2D cell culture methods, in recent decades tumor spheroids and other 3D cell culture methods have been employed to better replicate the physiological environment of the body. We recently presented an ultrahigh resolution line-field OCT (LF-OCT) technology and a dynamic OCT (dOCT) method to image tumor spheroids and identify areas of necrosis following radiation treatment, for comparison with computer simulation. Individual cells can be resolved by the LF-OCT system and the dOCT algorithm can resolve sub-cellular dynamic motion. The study investigated the morphological and dynamic behavior of PC3 prostate tumor spheroids over two weeks of growth. These results will be used to inform a computational model of tumor growth.