Imaging of skin birefringence for human scar assessment using polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography aided by vascular masking.

We demonstrate the in vivo assessment of human scars by parametric imaging of birefringence using polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT). Such in vivo assessment is subject to artifacts in the detected birefringence caused by scattering from blood vessels. To reduce these artifacts, we preprocessed the PS-OCT data using a vascular masking technique. The birefringence of the remaining tissue regions was then automatically quantified. Results from the scars and contralateral or adjacent normal skin of 13 patients show a correspondence of birefringence with scar type: the ratio of birefringence of hypertrophic scars to corresponding normal skin is 2.2 ± 0.2 (mean ± standard deviation ), while the ratio of birefringence of normotrophic scars to normal skin is 1.1 ± 0.4 . This method represents a new clinically applicable means for objective, quantitative human scar assessment.