Quantitative characterization of mechanically indented in vivo human skin in adults and infants using optical coherence tomography

Abstract

Quantitative characterization of mechanically indented in vivo human skin in adults and infants using optical coherence tomography," J. Biomed. Opt. 22(3), 034001 (2017), doi: 10.1117/1.JBO.22.3.034001. Abstract. Influenced by both the intrinsic viscoelasticity of the tissue constituents and the time-evolved redistribution of fluid within the tissue, the biomechanical response of skin can reflect not only localized pathology but also systemic physiology of an individual. While clinical diagnosis of skin pathologies typically relies on visual inspection and manual palpation, a more objective and quantitative approach for tissue characterization is highly desirable. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an interferometry-based imaging modality that enables in vivo assessment of cross-sectional tissue morphology with micron-scale resolution, which surpasses those of most standard clinical imaging tools, such as ultrasound imaging and magnetic resonance imaging. This pilot study investigates the feasibility of characterizing the biomechanical response of in vivo human skin using OCT. OCT-based quantitative metrics were developed and demonstrated on the human subject data, where a significant difference between deformed and nondeformed skin was revealed. Additionally, the quantified postindentation recovery results revealed differences between aged (adult) and young (infant) skin. These suggest that OCT has the potential to quantitatively assess the mechanically perturbed skin as well as distinguish different physiological conditions of the skin, such as changes with age or disease.

Clinical translation of handheld optical coherence tomography: practical considerations and recent advancements

“…Although there are fairly rigid experimental requirements to perform this work, many tissue types have been explored and characterized 133 – 136 One example is through the use of a commercial probe that was adapted to detect the biomechanical properties of human skin with aging by observing elasticity and scattering metrics, and was performed in vivo on human subjects 137 . Still, employing elastography techniques in a handheld probe-based system adds considerable difficulty, as the exact experimental and boundary conditions cannot always be guaranteed.…”

Translational optical coherence elastography for assessment of systemic sclerosis

“…Similarly, for OCTSS analysis, the changes in the skin tension based on hand positioning may lead to the redistribution of the unbound fluid within the tissue, which could subsequently affect the microstructure detected by the OCTSS. Previous work has demonstrated that the optical properties of skin can be affected by an external mechanical stimulation . Therefore, imaging an area sufficiently far away from movable joints and incorporating an aiming laser with the current setup may enhance the sensitivity and reliability of OCT and OCE to accurately monitor SSc progression.…”

“…Previous work demonstrated the correlation of OCT‐assessed optical density in the papillary dermis with local mRSS evaluated from the forearm ( r = −.66 to −0.7) and finger ( r = −.55) . Furthermore, tissue structural properties can be quantitatively characterized by various parameters based on the OCT structural images, such as fractal analysis , optical attenuation , and spatial speckle analyses . With the superior spatial resolution of OCT, optical coherence angiography has promising potential to image microangiopathy severity in SSc patients since SSc also has a substantial vasculopathic component .…”

Interstitial magnetic thermotherapy dosimetry based on shear wave magnetomotive optical coherence elastography

“…In clinical practice, ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), and MRI are currently utilized to guide the placement of RFA probes and evaluate ablation outcomes [49]. With previously demonstrated intraoperative imaging capabilities [50], an OCT-assisted clinical environment is also foreseen, where handheld or catheter-based OCT can be utilized to both detect the local tumor microstructure and/or image the altered mechanical response of tissue through morphological alteration [50][51][52]. By incorporating magnetomotive components into a handheld or catheter-based OCT platform, in situ MM-OCE-based thermal dosage evaluation may be feasible in the future, serving as a physiologically-meaningful and complementary approach for real-time thermal treatment dosimetry.…”