Chemical Imaging in Middle Ear Pathology: Quo Vadis?

Accurate diagnosis of most middle ear pathological conditions including otitis media remains challenging in a clinical setting. Standard ear evaluations are still performed primarily on the basis of human recognition of morphologic patterns in vivo using white light otoscope and suffer from significant observer variability providing minimal understanding of a disease’s underlying biochemistry. Owing to the biochemical specificity and multiplexing capability, spectroscopybased chemical imaging has emerged as a promising tool for middle ear disease diagnosis in a real-time, label-free and non-destructive manner. Here, we critically review the spectroscopybased approaches employed to study middle ear pathological conditions.