Quantification of biomechanical properties of human corneal scar using acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography

Abstract

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.

Acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography: A preliminary study on biomechanical properties of trabecular meshwork

“…The reliability and feasibility of ARF-OCE for detecting the elasticity of ocular tissues have been verified in our previous work [21][22][23]. In this study, a 3D (x, y, z) structure of the porcine anterior chamber angle was reconstructed in a scanning range of 6 Â 6 mm.…”

“…In our previous work, an acoustic radiation force (ARF) OCE system was developed to detect the biomechanical properties of biological tissues, particularly the ocular tissues, in which ARF was used to induce tissue deformation that was captured by OCT [21][22][23]. Compared with the OCE system based on other excitation modes such as shaker, air puff, and piezoelectric transducer, ARF-OCE can provide a local, noncontact, highspeed, and dynamic measurement [24,25].…”

Quantitative Evaluation of In Vivo Corneal Biomechanical Properties after SMILE and FLEx Surgery by Acoustic Radiation Force Optical Coherence Elastography

“…Consecutive A-scans at a single point on the x -axis (fast scan) yield a total of 500 M-scans, then the 2D galvo-mirror moved the OCT beam (slow scan) to the next point on the x -axis to perform the same M-scan. A total of 1000 points at different positions on the x -axis constituted the B scan with a total process duration of 10 s. The accuracy of our developed ARF-OCE system for elastography has been evaluated in previous work [ 25 , 26 ]. During the OCE experiment, the rabbit eyeball was squeezed within a rubber drape that serves as a container to immerse the eyeball in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS).…”

Two‐dimensional elastic distribution imaging of the sclera using acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography

“…The system and algorithm have been verified in our previous work [26][27][28]. In this paper, ARF-OCE detections were carried out on the ex vivo porcine sclera under different IOP values.…”