In vivomonitoring of external pressure induced hemodynamics in skin tissue using optical coherence tomography angiography

Abstract

Characterization of the relationship between external pressure and blood flow is important in the examination of pressure-induced disturbance in tissue microcirculation. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) angiography is a promising imaging technique, capable of providing the noninvasive extraction of functional vessels within the skin tissue with capillary-scale resolution. Here, we present a feasibility study of OCT angiography to monitor effect of external pressures on blood perfusion in human skin tissue in vivo. Graded external pressure is loaded normal to the surface of the nailfold tissue of a healthy human. The incremental loading is applied step by step and then followed by an immediate release. Concurrent OCT imaging of the nailfold is performed during the pre/post loading. Blood perfusion images including baseline (at pre-loading) and corresponding tissue strain maps are calculated from 3D OCT dataset obtained at the different applied pressures, allowing visualization of capillary perfusion events at stressed nailfold tissue. The results indicate that the perfusion progressively decreases with the constant increase of tissue strain. Reactive hyperemia is occurred right after the removal of the pressure corresponding to quick drop of the increased strain. The perfusion is returned to the baseline level after a few minutes. These findings suggest that OCT microangiography may have great potential for quantitatively assessing tissue microcirculation in the locally pressed tissue in vivo.