Careful quantification of the changes in biomechanical properties of the iris can offer insight into the pathophysiology of some ocular diseases. However, to date there has not been much information available regarding this subject because clinical detection for iris elasticity remains challenging. To overcome this limitation, we explore, for the first time to our knowledge, the potential of measuring iris elasticity using acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography (ARF-OCE). The resulting images and shear wave propagation, as well as the corresponding shear modulus and Young’s modulus from ex vivo and in vivo rabbit models confirmed the feasibility of this method. With features of noninvasive imaging, micrometer-scale resolution, high acquisition speed and real-time processing, ARF-OCE is a promising method for reconstruction of iris elasticity and may have great potential to be applied in clinical ophthalmology with further refinement.
Biomechanical properties of corneal scar are strongly correlated with many corneal diseases and some types of corneal surgery, however, there is no elasticity information available about corneal scar to date. Here, we proposed an acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography system to evaluate corneal scar elasticity. Elasticity quantification was first conducted on ex vivo rabbit corneas, and the results validate the efficacy of our system. Then, experiments were performed on an ex vivo human scarred cornea, where the structural features, the elastic wave propagations, and the corresponding Young’s modulus of both the scarred region and the normal region were achieved and based on this, 2D spatial distribution of Young’s modulus of the scarred cornea was depicted. Up to our knowledge, we realized the first elasticity quantification of corneal scar, which may provide a potent tool to promote clinical research on the disorders and surgery of the cornea.
Despite the rapidly growing popularity of laser vision correction (LVC) in the correction of myopia, its quantitative evaluation has not been thoroughly investigated. In this paper, an acoustic radiation force–optical coherence elastography (ARF-OCE) system was proposed to evaluate LVC by measuring the residual stromal bed (RSB) elasticity, because it is directly relevant to the RSB thickness that is critical to maintaining normal corneal function. As expected, the Young’s modulus of the RSB was calculated, then its relationship with the RSB thickness was determined. More significantly, a specific thickness was revealed in which the Young’s modulus changed dramatically, which may imply that there is a high risk of complication caused by over-cutting of the cornea. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first ARF-OCE imaging of the RSB, which may help to determine the safe RSB thickness and thus may help us to quantitatively assess LVC surgery.
Evaluating biomechanical properties of trabecular meshwork (TM) is of great significance for understanding the mechanism of aqueous humor circulation and its relationship to some eye diseases such as glaucoma; however, there is almost no relevant study due to the lack of clinical measurement tool. In this paper, an acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography (ARF‐OCE) system is developed with the advantages of noninvasive detection, high resolution, high sensitivity, and high‐speed imaging, by which elastic modulus of the porcine and human TMs is accurately quantified. As the first OCE imaging of TM, our study demonstrates that ARF‐OCE may be an effective approach to advance the research of diseases related to aqueous humor circulation.
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