Quantifying Dehydration Effects of Porcine Vocal Fold Attenuation With Optical Coherence Tomography

The purpose of this study is to use optical coherence tomography (OCT) to characterize the effect of dehydration on the optical attenuation coefficient of porcine vocal fold (VF) tissue. Assessing laryngeal hydration is clinically relevant for evaluating vocal function; however, no reliable noninvasive methods currently exist to quantify it.

Six porcine larynges were bisected into 12 halves, yielding 12 VFs. Each specimen underwent serial dehydration using a vacuum oven to approximately 5%, 10%, and 15% mass loss, with OCT scans obtained at each interval using a 1300 nm wavelength system. Attenuation coefficients were extracted from OCT B-scans through custom MATLAB processing, and the relationship between tissue dehydration and attenuation was modeled using a linear mixed-effects model.

Across VFs, attenuation decreased by approximately 0.08 mm^-1 for each 1% increase in tissue mass loss (b = -0.079, 95% CI [-0.105, -0.054]). Attenuation decreased linearly with increasing tissue dehydration. The true VF exhibited consistently higher attenuation values than the false folds by an average of 1.47 mm^-1 (p < 0.001). Interfold variability was low (ICC = 0.041), indicating strong reproducibility across specimens.

OCT-derived attenuation provides a quantitative, reproducible indicator of VF dehydration. The linear relationship between attenuation and tissue mass loss supports the feasibility of OCT as a noninvasive optical biomarker of VF hydration. Future multi-wavelength and in vivo studies will be critical to translate this approach into clinical monitoring of VF hydration, edema, and lesion formation.

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