Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 22, 2026
Dual-mode Imaging of Cutaneous Tissue Oxygenation and Vascular Function
Published on: December 8, 2010
Characterization of skin Port-Wine Stain and Hemangioma vascular lesions using Doppler OCT
A Latrive1, L R C Teixeira1,2, A S L Gomes3
1Center for Lasers and Applications - CLA, IPEN-CNEN/SP, São Paulo, Brazil.
Background:
Port-Wine Stains (PWS) are vascular malformations of the dermis, whereas hemangiomas are vascular tumors usually present at birth. Early non-invasive diagnosis of the vascular lesion would greatly increase treatment efficiency. We propose to use optical coherence tomography (OCT), a morphological imaging technique, coupled with functional blood-flow Doppler modality.
Methods:
We imaged lesions from five patients: one with PWS, four with hemangiomas, using a Thorlabs Swept-Source OCT system at 1325 nm. Additional Doppler images allow for distinguishing blood vessels from empty cavities that appear similar on conventional OCT images.
Results:
We are able to distinguish between normal skin and vascular lesions. The PWS lesion presents blood vessels of mean diameter 114 μm with a standard deviation of 92 μm, and mean depth 304 μm with a standard deviation of 99 μm. The hemangiomas present blood vessels of mean diameter 39 μm with a standard deviation of 19 μm, and mean depth 298 μm with a standard deviation of 133 μm.
Conclusion:
We show a significant difference between the vascular characteristics of the studied PWS and hemangiomas lesions. We believe that OCT complemented by Doppler OCT could be a promising method for future non-invasive diagnosis and monitoring of some vascular lesions.
