Novel methods for elasticity characterization using optical coherence tomography: Brief review and future prospects

Abstract In this paper, a brief overview of several recently proposed approaches to elastographic characterization of biological tissues using optical coherence tomography is presented. A common feature of these “unconventional” approaches is that unlike most others, they do not rely on a two-step process of first reconstructing the particle displacements and then performing its error-prone differentiation in order to determine the local strains. Further, several variants of these new approaches were proposed and demonstrated essentially independently and are based on significantly different principles. Despite the seeming differences, these techniques open up interesting prospects not only for independent usage, but also for combined implementation to provide a multifunctional investigation of elasticity of biological tissues and their rheological properties in a wider sense.