[3.05] OCT of healthy skin, actinic skin and BCC lesions

Objective For the differentiation between healthy skin and actinic and BCC lesions two-dimensional images of the skin structure in situ might be of certain value. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) was used to assess whether the OCT images be of particular value or could act as a projection frame of further information obtained by various other methods, e.g. spatially resolved fluorescence detection (SRFD). Material and methods Images of healthy skin, actinic skin lesions with different degrees of dysplasia, and basal cell carcinoma (BCC) lesions were obtained from 10 patients referred for local photodynamic therapy (PDT). These were compared with regard to their appearance in OCT-images (SR-OCT Imaging System, Thorlabs). Results In healthy skin a good correlation between the images of histological samples and the two-dimensional OCT images was seen with regard to the discrimination of epithelial layer with its different zones, the basal membrane and adjacent dermal structures. In unhealthy skin, equivalents of typical histological features of epithelial dysplasia and changes in dermal layers could be found in OCT-images. Conclusion OCT may be used as investigative tool in the evaluation of actinic and BCC skin lesions. The comparison of images revealed a strong correlation with histological images for the upper layers of the dermis.