Imaging of skin microvessels with optical coherence tomography: potential uses in port wine stains

Abstract

The knowledge of vascular structures of port wine stains (PWSs) may be useful to select treatment doses and improve therapeutic efficacy. Biopsies are impractical to implement, therefore, it is necessary to develop non-invasive techniques for morphological evaluation. This study aimed to evaluate the application of a novel optical coherence tomography (OCT) system to characterize the vascular structures of PWSs. First, OCT images were obtained from the skin of healthy rabbit ears and compared with the histopathological images. Second, OCT was used to document the differences between PWS lesions and contralateral normal skin; the size and depth of the vascular structures of two clinical types of PWSs were measured and statistically analyzed. The dermal blood vessels of healthy rabbit ears were clearly distinguished from other tissue. There was no statistical difference between the vascular diameter or depth measured by OCT images and histopathological sections (P>0.05). The OCT images of the PWSs could be distinguished from normal skin. There was no statistical difference in the depth of vessels between the purple-type and the proliferative-type PWSs (P>0.05), while there was statistical difference in the diameter of vessels between them (P<0.01). Therefore, OCT is a promising, real-time, in vivo and non-invasive tool with which to characterize the vascular structures of PWSs.

Automated Assessment of Epidermal Thickness and Vascular Density of Port Wine Stains Oct Image

“…10 In addition, ET is a good indicator of complication after PDT. The relative intensity of dermis re°ects the vascular density in dermis, which is an important parameter in PDT mathematic model 20 and very useful for determining laser dose in PDT.…”

“…In our previous work, 10 we demonstrated the blood vessel diameters measured manually in PWS OCT image which aids the objective diagnosis of PWS pathological types. However, automated extraction of these diameters was complicated and di±cult, due to the irregular shape and nonclosure contour of capillary vessels.…”

“…6 ET correlates with laser dosage in PDT treatment, due to the epidermal absorption and scattering of light. 7 In our previous work, [8][9][10] manual line drawing method was used to measure ET in PWS OCT image. To obtain ET more rapidly and avoid user intervention, an automated algorithm is needed.…”

In vivo, high‐resolution, three‐dimensional imaging of port wine stain microvasculature in human skin

“…Port-wine stain (PWS) is a congenital, progressive vascular malformation of the dermis. The use of OCT for the characterization of blood vessels in PWS skin has been demonstrated by several groups, including our institution [1][2][3][4]. A time-domain OCT system has been used clinically for PWS imaging to determine epidermal thickness and the configuration of dilated capillary vessels from the analysis of two-dimensional OCT images [2].…”

Characterization of skin Port‐Wine Stain and Hemangioma vascular lesions using Doppler OCT

“…Novel alternative non-invasive techniques for in vivo diagnosis are, thus, to be preferred, such as spectroscopy or optical coherence tomography (OCT) (10)(11)(12)(13).…”