Novel polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography based on spun fiber to study articular cartilage degenerative processing

Degenerative joint disease (DJD) is a disease that the articular cartilage changes from hyaline cartilage to fibrous cartilage. PS-OCT may provide a method to quantitatively analyze cartilage birefringence and diagnose DJD. Here, we proposed a novel PS-OCT system that uses spun fiber to construct the sample arm. In this work, phase retardation map, optical axis map, and conventional OCT images of hyaline cartilage and fibrous cartilage are presented, and the differences in the birefringence of these two types of cartilage are identified. The proposed PS-OCT system demonstrates great potential for accurate diagnosis of DJD in the clinic.