Discrimination of collagen in normal and pathological skin dermis through second-order susceptibility microscopy.
Polarization-resolved, second harmonic generation (P-SHG) microscopy at single pixel resolution is utilized for medical diagnosis of pathological skin dermis. In analyzing the large area, pixel by pixel, second-order susceptibility of normal and pathological skin dermis, we found that P-SHG can be used to distinguish normal and dermal pathological conditions of keloid, morphea, and dermal elastolysis. Specifically, we found that the second order susceptibility tensor ratio of d(33)/d(31) for normal skins is 1.27+/-0.20, while the corresponding values for keloid, morphea, and dermal elastolysis are respectively 1.67+/-0.29, 1.79+/-0.30, and 1.75+/-0.31. We also found that the histograms of the d(33)/d(31) ratio for the pathological skins contain two peak values and are 1.5 times wider than that of the normal case, suggesting that the pathological dermal collagen fibers tend to be more structurally heterogeneous. Our work demonstrates that pixel-resolved, second-order susceptibility microscopy is effective for detecting heterogeneity in spatial distribution of collagen fibers and maybe used for future clinical diagnosis and in vivo studies of collagen pathological conditions.
Su
Ping-Jung
PJ
Department of Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Chen
Wei-Liang
WL
Hong
Jin-Bon
JB
Li
Tsung-Hsien
TH
Wu
Ruei-Jr
RJ
Chou
Chen-Kuan
CK
Chen
Shean-Jen
SJ
Hu
Chieh
C
Lin
Sung-Jan
SJ
Dong
Chen-Yuan
CY
D003094:Collagen / Q000737:chemistry*; D003880:Dermatology / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D004548:Elasticity; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007627:Keloid / Q000473:pathology; D007834:Lasers; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods*; D055100:Optical Fibers; D012867:Skin / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology
D003094:Collagen