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Novel methods for elasticity characterization using optical coherence tomography: Brief review and future prospects

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Published/Copyright: September 3, 2014
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Abstract

In this paper, a brief overview of several recently proposed approaches to elastographic characterization of biological tissues using optical coherence tomography is presented. A common feature of these “unconventional” approaches is that unlike most others, they do not rely on a two-step process of first reconstructing the particle displacements and then performing its error-prone differentiation in order to determine the local strains. Further, several variants of these new approaches were proposed and demonstrated essentially independently and are based on significantly different principles. Despite the seeming differences, these techniques open up interesting prospects not only for independent usage, but also for combined implementation to provide a multifunctional investigation of elasticity of biological tissues and their rheological properties in a wider sense.

Zusammenfassung

In diesem Beitrag wird ein kurzer Überblick über einige kürzlich vorgestellte Ansätze zur elastographischen Charakterisierung von biologischen Geweben mittels optischer Kohärenztomographie gegeben. Diesen “unkonventionellen” Ansätzen ist gemeinsam, dass sie nicht, so wie die meisten anderen, auf einem zweistufigen Prozess (zuerst Rekonstruktion der Partikelverschiebungen, dann Durchführung ihrer fehleranfälligen Differenzierung), basieren, um die lokalen Belastungen zu bestimmen. Es wurden mehrere Varianten dieser neuen Ansätze verfolgt, die auf deutlich unterschiedlichen Prinzipien beruhen und im Wesentlichen unabhängig voneinander demonstriert wurden. Trotz der scheinbaren Unterschiede, eröffnen diese Techniken interessante Perspektiven – nicht nur für eine unabhängige Nutzung sondern auch für die kombinierte Umsetzung – um eine multifunktionale Untersuchung der Elastizität von biologischen Geweben und ihrer rheologischen Eigenschaften in einem weiteren Sinne zu ermöglichen.


Corresponding author: Lev A. Matveev, Institute of Applied Physics RAS, 46 Uljanova Str., Nizhny Novgorod 603950, Russia; Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy, 10/1 Minin Square, Nizhny Novgorod 603005, Russia; and Nizhny Novgorod State University, Gagarina Avenue 23, Nizhny Novgorod 603950, Russia, e-mail:

Acknowledgments

This work is partially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant No. 13-02-00627 and 13-02-97131). L.A. Matveev acknowledges support of grant No. MK-4826.2013.2 of the President of the Russian Federation. The authors also acknowledge the OCT Lab of the Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy (NNSMA) (under Russian Federation Government contract No. 14.B25.31.0015) for organizing and financial supports of the experiments provided in sections 2.4 and 2.5 and the MedLab of the Nizhny Novgorod State University (under Russian Federation Government contract No. 11.G34.31.0066 and Russian Ministry of Education and Science contract No. 02.B.49.21.0003) for partial support of SD-OCE system development.

Authors are grateful to Marina Shirmanova, Marina Sirotkina, Maria Karabut, Tatiana Pryanikova, Vadim Elagin and Anton Pavlikov (all from NNSMA, Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia) for their help during the experiments with the mice. Authors also are grateful to Prof. Kirill Larin (University of Houston, USA), Prof. David Sampson (University of Western Australia, Australia) and the co-authors of the works [41, 42] and [43] for reprint permissions and for providing materials for this review.

  1. Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest with any financial organization regarding the material discussed in the manuscript.

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Received: 2014-6-14
Revised: 2014-8-6
Accepted: 2014-8-8
Published Online: 2014-9-3
Published in Print: 2014-11-1

©2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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