Imaging striae distensae: a comparison between PS-OCT and digital dermoscopy.

Wai Ching Lin,Michael J Cork,Wei Li,Robert A Byers,Simon G Danby,Stephen J Matcher

doi:10.1364/boe.417084

Abstract

Stretch marks or striae distensae (SD) cause emotional distress and negatively affect the psychological well-being of patients. We investigate and compare two methods for quantifying the severity of SD: visual scoring of images captured using a clinical visible-light dermatological camera (C-Cube, Pixience Inc) and measuring the local birefringence of skin using polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT). Data on skin visually affected by SD and visually normal skin were collected from 19 human volunteers. Our results show a weak correlation between visual scores of the C-Cube images and the birefringence values obtained from the PS-OCT system. SD datasets have a significantly larger birefringence values compared to visually normal datasets.

Highlights

Striae distensae (SD), more commonly known as stretch marks, are dermal scarring lesions on the skin [1]
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first exploratory study comparing visible-light dermoscopy with enface polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-Optical coherence tomography (OCT)) tissue birefringence imaging to assess the severity of striae distensae, in a clinically useful cohort size (150 measurement sites in 19 volunteers)
We attempt in this paper to compare this method of scoring to quantified tissue birefringence metrics obtained using a PS-OCT system

Summary

Introduction

Striae distensae (SD), more commonly known as stretch marks, are dermal scarring lesions on the skin [1] They are caused by excess mechanical stretching of the dermis over time [2, 3], an increase in hormonal receptor activity [4] and/or a reduced expression of collagen, elastin and fibronectin [5]. The resulting wound-healing response lays down scar tissue of highly aligned collagen and elastin, which forms the visible SD. They are aesthetically undesirable, place a psychosocial burden on patients and negatively affect their quality of life [6,7]. The goal of most treatments is to stimulate collagen production and realignment [6]

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