title: The potential of photoacoustic microscopy as a tool to characterize the in vivo degradation of surgical sutures.
abstract: The ex vivo and in vivo imaging, and quantitative characterization of the degradation of surgical sutures (∼500 μm diameter) up to ∼1cm depth is demonstrated using a custom dark-field photo-acoustic microscope (PAM). A practical algorithm is developed to accurately measure the suture diameter during the degradation process. The results from tissue simulating phantoms and mice are compared to ex vivo measurements with an optical microscope demonstrating that PAM has a great deal of potential to characterize the degradation process of surgical sutures. The implications of this work for industrial applications are discussed.
authors.affiliation: ICFO-Insitut de Ciènces Fotòniques, 08860, Castelldefels, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Aguirre
authors.affiliation: ICFO-Insitut de Ciènces Fotòniques, 08860, Castelldefels, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Jordi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Morales-Dalmau
authors.affiliation: B.Braun Surgical S.A., 08191, Rubí, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Lutz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Funk
authors.affiliation: B.Braun Surgical S.A., 08191, Rubí, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Francesc
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jara
authors.affiliation: B.Braun Surgical S.A., 08191, Rubí, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Pau
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Turon
authors.affiliation: ICFO-Insitut de Ciènces Fotòniques, 08860, Castelldefels, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Turgut
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Durduran
keywords: (110.5120) Photoacoustic imaging; (170.0170) Medical optics and biotechnology