Evaluation on human skin rheology using micro-tomographic visualization applying dynamic viscoelastic method

Abstract

It is well-known that aging and photoaging causes tissue degeneration of collagen and elastin in the upper dermis. As a result, the change in rheological properties of skin, i.e. viscoelasticity, develop wrinkles and sagging. In this study, a hybridded system with suction pressure device and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) can visualize rheological properties as strain rate distribution as well as capillary blood flow information tomographically at the micrometer scale. In this experiment, the dynamic viscoelastic analyzing (DMA) test was applied to human forearm skin by sinusoidal pressure loading, with simultaneously taking OCT images. As a result, DMA-OCSA can reveal rheological distribution from epidermis to upper dermis as the tomographic phase difference map of strain rate. Consequently, it is suggested that DMA-OCSA has good potential of diagnosing rheological properties inside skin tissue.