Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 98195.
Department of Surgery, Division of Trauma, Critical Care, and Burn, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 98104.
Lasers Surg Med. 2021 Nov;53(9):1192-1200. doi: 10.1002/lsm.23415. Epub 2021 May 16.
There remains a need to objectively monitor burn wound healing within a clinical setting, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) is proving itself one of the ideal modalities for just such a use. The aim of this study is to utilize the noninvasive and multipurpose capabilities of OCT, along with its cellular-level resolution, to demonstrate the application of optical attenuation coefficient (OAC), as derived from OCT data, to facilitate the automatic digital segmentation of the epidermis from scan images and to work as an objective indicator for burn wound healing assessment.
STUDY DESIGN/MATERIALS AND METHODS: A simple, yet efficient, method was used to estimate OAC from OCT images taken over multiple time points following acute burn injury. This method enhanced dermal-epidermal junction (DEJ) contrast, which facilitated the automatic segmentation of the epidermis for subsequent thickness measurements. In addition, we also measured and compared the average OAC of the dermis within said burns for correlative purposes.
Compared with unaltered OCT maps, enhanced DEJ contrast was shown in OAC maps, both from single A-lines and completed B-frames. En face epidermal thickness and dermal OAC maps both demonstrated significant changes between imaging sessions following burn injury, such as a loss of epidermal texture and decreased OAC. Quantitative analysis also showed that OAC of acute burned skin decreased below that of healthy skin following injury.
Our study has demonstrated that the OAC estimated from OCT data can be used to enhance imaging contrast to facilitate the automatic segmentation of the epidermal layer, as well as help elucidate our understanding of the pathological changes that occur in human skin when exposed to acute burn injury, which could serve as an objective indicator of skin injury and healing.
仍需要在临床环境中客观监测烧伤创面愈合情况，而光学相干断层扫描（OCT）已被证明是一种理想的方法。本研究旨在利用 OCT 的非侵入性和多功能特性及其细胞级分辨率，展示光衰减系数（OAC）的应用，该系数源自 OCT 数据，以促进自动数字分割表皮从扫描图像，并作为烧伤创面愈合评估的客观指标。
研究设计/材料与方法：采用一种简单而有效的方法，从急性烧伤后多个时间点的 OCT 图像中估算 OAC。该方法增强了真皮-表皮交界处（DEJ）的对比度，从而促进了表皮的自动分割，以便进行后续的厚度测量。此外，我们还测量并比较了烧伤真皮内的平均 OAC，以进行相关性研究。
与未经处理的 OCT 图谱相比，OAC 图谱显示出增强的 DEJ 对比度，无论是从单个 A 线还是完整的 B 帧。在烧伤后不同的成像过程中，表皮厚度和真皮 OAC 的对比图都显示出明显的变化，如表皮纹理丧失和 OAC 降低。定量分析还表明，急性烧伤皮肤的 OAC 在受伤后低于健康皮肤。
本研究表明，从 OCT 数据估算的 OAC 可用于增强成像对比度，以促进表皮层的自动分割，并有助于阐明我们对人体皮肤在急性烧伤暴露下发生的病理变化的理解，可作为皮肤损伤和愈合的客观指标。
