Design and implementation of an integrated scanning protocol for multimodal functional OCT

Early diagnosis of skin lesions is crucial for improving treatment outcomes. So far, based on optical coherence tomography (OCT), as a non-invasive technique, OCT structural image, optical coherence elastography (OCE), and OCT-based angiography (OCTA) have been utilized to evaluate the biomechanical properties and vascular network in in-vivo human skin. However, image registrations are the major difficulty in separating scans. Therefore, the integration of these three modalities has been achieved by a new scanning protocol to provide a comprehensive, non-invasive assessment of skin tissue, enabling more accurate differentiation between benign and malignant lesions. This study aimed to collect data for the OCT structure, OCE, and OCTA in one scanning acquisition by employing a swept-source (SS-OCT) OCT system. Eleven health participants were recruited for three positions: palm (n = 11), forearm (n = 11), and facial skin (n = 5). From OCE data, Young’s modulus was calculated for the stiffness; from OCTA data, vessel area density (VAD), vessel skeleton density (VSD), vessel diameter index (VDI), and weighted Tortuosity Index (WTI) were used to evaluate the vessel network. One facial lesion dataset was collected, and the results indicated differences in the above parameters compared to healthy facial skin data. In conclusion, the new scanning protocol for integrating the structural image, OCE, and OCTA in one scan demonstrated results to calculate the parameters of the skin, which provides potential benefits for skin research and offers full aspects for dermatologists of skin disease.