Optical Biopsy: A Non-Invasive Approach for Real-Time Disease Diagnosis

Optical biopsy, an innovative and interdisciplinary approach leveraging light-tissue interaction, holds significant potential to revolutionize medical diagnostics. This review article explores the fundamental physical and biological principles underlying this approach, including light absorption, scattering, reflection, and fluorescence by endogenous and exogenous chromophores and fluorophores. We detail key optical biopsy techniques such as fluorescence, Raman, and reflectance/absorbance spectroscopies, as well as advanced optical imaging methods like confocal microscopy, optical coherence tomography (OCT), multi/hyperspectral imaging, and advanced optical endoscopy. The broad clinical applications of these methods in early cancer detection (skin, gastrointestinal, respiratory, cervical, and other organs), non-cancerous diseases (inflammation, infection, wound monitoring), and intraoperative guidance are highlighted. Despite advantages like non-invasiveness, real-time diagnosis, and reduced side effects, optical biopsy faces limitations such as limited light penetration depth, complexity of data interpretation, and its inability to fully replace histopathology. Nevertheless, the future outlook is highly promising, driven by the development of more portable instruments, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, multimodal approaches, and extensive clinical studies. This article concludes that optical biopsy will play a pivotal role as a powerful complementary tool in enhancing disease diagnosis and management in the future.