Quantitative evaluation of the thenar skin characteristics of patients with diabetes using optical coherence...

Knowledge of site-specific skin characteristics is important for optimizing multiple µ-spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (mµSORS)-based glucose monitoring. We characterized the thenar skin characteristics of 120 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and 20 healthy volunteers to support the development of mµSORS. We assessed the skin thickness, optical attenuation coefficient (OAC), surface roughness, skin hydration, sebum on skin surface, and color, and the distributions of the values were characterized. The skin of the patients had a thicker stratum corneum (p = 0.02) and a more undulating dermal-epidermal junction (p = 0.05) than that of the controls. Analyses of the relationship between parameters for the T2DM group revealed that: (1) the epidermal thickness and stratum spinosum OAC were significantly associated with skin lightness and saturation; (2) the skin thickness, OAC, and surface roughness varied significantly with age and sex, especially the upper dermis OAC. These findings constitute valuable data for the optimization of mµSORS-based non-invasive glucose monitoring and offer insight into the skin characteristics of patients with diabetes.