title: Determination of burn depth by polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography.
abstract: An assessment of burn depth is a key step in guiding the treatment of patients who have sustained thermal injuries. Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) might eventually provide the physician with a quantitative estimate of actual burn depth. Burns of various depths were induced by contacting rat skin with a brass rod preheated to 75 degrees C for 5, 15, or 30 s. Thermal injury denatured the collagen in the skin, and PS-OCT imaged the resulting reduction of birefringence through the depth-resolved changes in the polarization state of light propagated and reflected from the sample. Stokes vectors were calculated for each point in the PS-OCT images and the reduction in the rate of phase retardation between two orthogonal polarizations of light (deg/microm) was found to show a consistent trend with burn exposure time. PS-OCT is a noninvasive technique with potential to give the physician the information needed to formulate an optimal treatment plan for burn patients.
authors.affiliation: Beckman Laser Institute, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Surgery, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA 92612, USA.
authors.forename: Shyam M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Srinivas
authors.forename: Johannes F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: de Boer
authors.forename: Hyle
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Kourosh
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Keikhanzadeh
authors.forename: Huai-en L
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Woong Qyu
authors.initials: WQ
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.forename: Zhongping
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: J Stuart
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Nelson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002056:Burns / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D007368:Interferometry / Q000379:methods*; D008859:Microscopy, Polarization / Q000379:methods*; D010783:Photometry / Q000379:methods*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000379:methods*; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices