The elasticity mapping of individual layers in the cornea using non-destructive elastography techniques advances diagnosis and monitoring of ocular diseases and treatments in ophthalmology. However, transient Lamb waves, currently used in most dynamic optical coherence and ultrasound elastography techniques, diminish the translation of wave speed into shear/Young’s modulus. Here, we present reverberant 3D optical coherence elastography (Rev3D-OCE), a novel approach leveraging the physical properties of diffuse fields in detecting elasticity gradients not only in the lateral direction, but also along the depth axis of the cornea. A Monte Carlo analysis, finite element simulations, and experiments in layered phantoms are conducted to validate the technique and to characterize the axial elastography resolution. Experiments in ex vivo porcine cornea at different intraocular pressures reveal that Rev3D-OCE enables the elastic characterization of single layers that matches the anatomical description of corneal layers with unprecedented contrast in the dynamic OCE field.

The determination of shear wave speed is an important subject in the field of elastography, since elevated shear wave speeds can be directly linked to increased stiffness of tissues. MRI and ultrasound scanners are frequently used to detect shear waves and a variety of estimators are applied to calculate the underlying shear wave speed. The estimators can be relatively simple if plane wave behavior is assumed with a known direction of propagation. However, multiple reflections from organ boundaries and internal inhomogeneities and mode conversions can create a complicated field in time and space. Thus, we explore the mathematics of multiple component shear wave fields and derive the basic properties, from which efficient estimators can be obtained. We approach this problem from the historic perspective of reverberant fields, a conceptual framework used in architectural acoustics and related fields. The framework can be recast for the alternative case of shear waves in a bounded elastic media, and the expected value of displacement patterns in shear reverberant fields are derived, along with some practical estimators of shear wave speed. These are applied to finite element models and phantoms to illustrate the characteristics of reverberant fields and provide preliminary confirmation of the overall framework.

After ten years of progress and innovation, optical coherence elastography (OCE) based on the propagation of mechanical waves has become one of the major and, perhaps, one of the most studied OCE branches, producing a fundamental impact in the quantitative and nondestructive biomechanical characterization of tissues. Preceding previous progress made in ultrasound and magnetic resonance elastography; wave-based OCE has pushed to the limit the advance of three major pillars: (1) implementation of novel wave excitation methods in tissues, (2) understanding new types of mechanical waves in complex boundary conditions by proposing advance analytical and numerical models, and (3) the development of novel estimators capable of retrieving quantitative 2D/3D biomechanical information of tissues. This remarkable progress promoted a major advance in answering basic science questions and improving medical disease diagnosis and treatment monitoring in several types of tissues leading, ultimately, to the first attempts of clinical trials and translational research. This paper summarizes the fundamental up-to-date principles and categories of wave-based OCE, revises the timeline and the state-of-the-art techniques and applications lying in those categories, and concludes with a discussion of current challenges and future directions, including clinical translation research.