Zvietcovich Fernando, Nair Achuth, Singh Manmohan, Aglyamov Salavat R, Twa Michael D, Larin Kirill V
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, USA.
Department of Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, San Miguel, Lima 15088, Peru.
Biomed Opt Express. 2022 Apr 5;13(5):2644-2654. doi: 10.1364/BOE.456186. eCollection 2022 May 1.
The localized application of the riboflavin/UV-A collagen cross-linking (UV-CXL) corneal treatment has been proposed to concentrate the stiffening process only in the compromised regions of the cornea by limiting the epithelium removal and irradiation area. However, current clinical screening devices dedicated to measuring corneal biomechanics cannot provide maps nor spatial-dependent changes of elasticity in corneas when treated locally with UV-CXL. In this study, we leverage our previously reported confocal air-coupled ultrasonic optical coherence elastography (ACUS-OCE) probe to study local changes of corneal elasticity in three cases: untreated, half-CXL-treated, and full-CXL-treated rabbit corneas (n = 8). We found a significant increase of the shear modulus in the half-treated (>450%) and full-treated (>650%) corneal regions when compared to the non-treated cases. Therefore, the ACUS-OCE technology possesses a great potential in detecting spatially-dependent mechanical properties of the cornea at multiple meridians and generating elastography maps that are clinically relevant for patient-specific treatment planning and monitoring of UV-CXL procedures.
核黄素/紫外线A胶原交联（UV-CXL）角膜治疗的局部应用被提议通过限制上皮去除和照射区域，仅将角膜的硬化过程集中在角膜的受损区域。然而，当前致力于测量角膜生物力学的临床筛查设备，在对角膜进行局部UV-CXL治疗时，无法提供角膜弹性的图谱或空间依赖性变化。在本研究中，我们利用我们之前报道的共焦空气耦合超声光学相干弹性成像（ACUS-OCE）探头，研究了三种情况下兔角膜的局部弹性变化：未治疗、半CXL治疗和全CXL治疗（n = 8）。我们发现，与未治疗的情况相比，半治疗（>450%）和全治疗（>650%）的角膜区域的剪切模量显著增加。因此，ACUS-OCE技术在检测角膜在多个子午线的空间依赖性力学特性以及生成对患者特定治疗计划和UV-CXL程序监测具有临床相关性的弹性成像图谱方面具有巨大潜力。
