Preliminary Experiment for High-resolution Measurement of Tissue Mechanical Properties Using Dynamic Optical Coherence Elastography

Optical coherence elastography (OCE) is based on optical coherence tomography (OCT), which is a noninvasive, high-resolution, cross-sectional imaging technique. In this paper, we have developed dynamic optical coherence elastography to measure elasticity, a mechanical property of tissue, by phase difference. A piezoelectric actuator was used for sinusoidal mechanical loading of samples. Before applying this method to biomaterial, we assessed the feasibility of OCE with samples of sponge, eraser, and sharp lead. Cross-sectional and phase-difference images of the sample were obtained under sinusoidal loading. The strain rate was calculated from the phase-difference information. To obtain the envelope of the phase-difference oscillations along the horizontal direction, Hilbert transformation was performed at each depth. The elevation of the envelope was represented by color mapping, and we could measure the relative elasticity within the sample by comparing the elevations. Finally, there was an advantage when we calculated the shear rate using self-interference in the sample arm, instead of the interference between sample and reference arms.