The impact in medicine of three-dimensional imaging technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), X-ray computed tomography, radioisotope imaging (PET and SPECT), ultrasound and diffuse optical tomography cannot be over-emphasized. In the last decades, new medical imaging technologies have radically improved not only the diagnosis and clinical management of various diseases but have also provided new opportunities for understanding the pathogenesis of various diseases and for the advancement of novel therapies and interventions. Together with the basic principles that lay behind the imaging method itself, this review provides a summary of the functional differences between time-domain, spectral-domain and full-field optical coherence tomography, a presentation of specific methods for processing the data acquired by these systems, an introduction to the noise sources that plague the detected signal and the progress made in optical coherence tomography catheter technology over the last decade. This review paper highlights the place occupied by optical coherence tomography in relation to other imaging methods that are used in medical and life science areas such as ophthalmology, cardiology, dentistry and gastrointestinal endoscopy. The advances made in the last two decades in interference technologies, optical instrumentation, catheter technology, optical detectors, speed of data acquisition and processing as well as light sources have facilitated the transformation of optical coherence tomography from an optical method used mainly in research laboratories into a valuable tool applied in various areas of medicine and health sciences.

Optical coherence tomography principle