Quantitative assessment of vascular features in port wine stains through optical coherence tomography angiography

Yidi Liu, Defu Chen, Jingjiang Xu, Yizhou Tan, Ying Wang, Hongyou Zhao, Hui Li, Haolin Liu, Ying Gu*, Haixia Qiu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background: Vascular lesions such as port wine stains (PWS) lead to facial and psychological problems, which require careful and precise treatments. The key point of treating PWS is to selectively destroy the abnormal blood vessels. Hence, the in vivo monitoring of targeted vessels is crucial. Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA), an emerging label-free imaging tool, facilitates the evaluation of skin structure and vasculature at a high resolution. In this study, we utilised OCTA to capture the structural and vascular morphology in patients with PWS. Moreover, we quantitatively characterised the morphological features of different types of PWS. Methods: This observational clinical study was conducted on 3 patients with flat PWS and 3 patients with thickened PWS. The age range was 4–27 years, and all of them had not received any treatment before this study. The OCTA images of the PWS lesions and contralateral skin were compared. Vascular morphology was characterized, and ectatic vessel depth was quantified according to the OCTA images. Results: The blood vessels of the PWS lesions tend to had larger diameters and higher densities than those in the contralateral normal skin. The vessel diameters of PWS lesions were 73 ± 14 μm, with high heterogeneity ranging from 10 to >150 μm, however, the vessel diameters of normal skin were 28 ± 2 μm, ranging from 10 μm to 60 μm. In terms of different PWS lesions, the thickened type showed a trend of larger vessel diameter and higher density than those of the purplish red type. The ectatic vessels were located at the depth of 216 ± 13 μm in the PWS skin. Conclusions: OCTA can facilitate the in vivo three-dimensional visualization of structure and vasculature for PWS lesions. Various quantitative analysis parameters, such as vessel diameter, density, and depth, are typically measured using OCTA. This fact demonstrates the superior capability of OCTA for the precise and comprehensive assessment of PWS lesions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102607
JournalPhotodiagnosis and Photodynamic Therapy
Volume36
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2021

Keywords

  • Blood vessel
  • Optical coherence tomography angiography
  • Port wine stains
  • Quantitative assessment

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Quantitative assessment of vascular features in port wine stains through optical coherence tomography angiography'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this