Optical coherence tomography in differential diagnosis of skin pathology

摘要

Abstract: The capabilities of optical coherence tomography (OCT)for imaging in vivo of optical patterns ofpathomorphological processes in the skin and use oftheir optical patterns in clinical practice fordifferential diagnosis of dermatoses are presented.Images of skin tissue 0.8 - 1.5 mm deep were acquiredwith a resolution of 5, 12 and 20 micrometer usingthree compact fiber OCT devices developed at theInstitute of Applied Physics RAS. The acquisition timeof images of skin regions 2 - 6 mm in length was 2 - 4s. The OCT capabilities were analyzed based on thestudy of 50 patients with different dermatoses. OCTimages were interpreted by comparing with parallelhistology. It is shown that OCT can detect in vivooptical patterns of morphological alterations in suchgeneral papulous dermatoses as lichen ruber planus andpsoriasis, a capability that can be used indifferential diagnosis of these diseases. Mostinformative are OCT images obtained with a resolutionof 5 micrometer. The results of our study demonstratethe practical importance of OCT imaging for diagnosisof different dermatoses. OCT is noninvasive and,therefore, makes it possible to perform frequentmultifocal examination of skin without any adverseeffects. !8