Correlation of optical coherence elastography with clinical evaluation of systemic sclerosis

摘要

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disorder with high mortality due to excessive accumulation of collagen inthe skin and internal organs. An accurate and early diagnosis is crucial to ensure effective treatment. Currently, themodified Rodnan skin score (mRSS) is the gold standard for evaluating dermal thickening during SSc onset andprogression. However, obtaining the mRSS can be time consuming, and the score has noticeable inter- and intraobservervariabilities. Optical coherence elastography (OCE) is an emerging technique for measuring soft tissuebiomechanical properties completely noninvasively. In this work, we demonstrate the first use of OCE combinedwith analysis of the OCT signal slope (OCTSS) for sclerosis detection in the dorsal forearm of 12 patients. Acomparison to clinical diagnoses including dermal thickness assessed by histology, mRSS, and site specific mRSS(SMRSS). Results of both optical assessments demonstrated high correlation (OCE: 0.78 and OCTSS: 0.65) withSMRSS as performed by an experienced physician. Importantly, the correlation of both proposed parameters withthe dermal thickness (OCTSS: r=0.78 and OCE: r=0.74) outperformed the SMRSS assessment (r=0.57),demonstrating the effectiveness of using OCT/OCE for monitoring the disease severity of SSc.