In Vivo Monitoring of Facial Acne Development by Using Multimodal Functional OCT

Acne is a common inflammatory skin condition and frequently leads to long-term adverse clinical outcomes including scarring and pigmentation, negatively impacting Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL). Monitoring of acne progression can improve understanding of lesion evolution, support evaluation of treatment response and provide potential biomarkers for future investigation of acne sequelae. This study presents a multi-functional optical coherence tomography (OCT) protocol integrating structural imaging, OCT-based angiography (OCTA), and optical coherence elastography (OCE) for longitudinal in vivo monitoring of acne. Thirteen lesions were evaluated across eight time points over 18 days. Quantitative parameters, including Young's modulus and vascular metrics, captured biomechanical and microvascular changes during acne evolution. The system enables continuous multimodal assessment, showing that stiffness and vascular alterations reflect lesion progression. This pilot longitudinal study establishes a quantitative foundation for dermatological research and suggests that multimodal OCT monitoring may provide biomarkers for assessing lesion progression and long-term clinical outcomes.