The "Virtual Biopsy" of Cancerous Lesions in 3D: Non-Invasive Differentiation between Melanoma and Other Lesions Using Vibrational Optical Coherence Tomography.

Early detection of skin cancer is of critical importance to provide five year survival rates that approach 99%. By 2050, one out of five Americans by age 70 will develop some form of skin cancer. This will result in a projected rate of 50 million skin biopsies per year given the current rate of escalation.

Characterization of the Biomechanical Properties of Skin Using Vibrational Optical Coherence Tomography: Do Changes in the Biomechanical Properties of Skin Stroma Reflect Structural Changes in the Extracellular Matrix of Cancerous Lesions?

Early detection of skin cancer is of critical importance since the five-year survival rate for early detected skin malignancies is 99% but drops to 27% for cancer that has spread to distant lymph nodes and other organs. Over 2.5 million benign skin biopsies (55% of the total) are performed each year in the US at an alarming cost of USD ~2.

Molecular Basis for Mechanical Properties of ECMs: Proposed Role of Fibrillar Collagen and Proteoglycans in Tissue Biomechanics.

Collagen and proteoglycans work in unison in the ECM to bear loads, store elastic energy and then dissipate excess energy to avoid tissue fatigue and premature mechanical failure. While collagen fibers store elastic energy by stretching the flexible regions in the triple helix, they do so by lowering their free energy through a reduction in the entropy and a decrease in charge-charge repulsion. Entropic increases occur when the load is released that drive the reversibility of the process and transmission of excess energy.

Use of Vibrational Optical Coherence Tomography to Analyze the Mechanical Properties of Composite Materials.

Energy storage and dissipation by composite materials are important design parameters for sensors and other devices. While polymeric materials can reversibly store energy by decreased chain randomness (entropic loss) they fail to be able to dissipate energy effectively and ultimately fail due to fatigue and molecular chain breakage. In contrast, composite tissues, such as muscle and tendon complexes, store and dissipate energy through entropic changes in collagen (energy storage) and viscous losses (energy dissipation) by muscle fibers or through fluid flow of the interfibrillar matrix.

Use of vibrational optical coherence tomography to measure viscoelastic properties of muscle and tendon: A new method to follow musculoskeletal injury and pathology In vivo.

The biomechanical properties of muscles and tendons in vivo are important parameters needed to understand musculoskeletal physiology and pathology. Values of the shear moduli reported for human musculoskeletal components using elastographic techniques range from several KPa to about 100 KPa and are much lower than the tensile moduli measured in vivo which are reported to be as high as several hundred MPa at high strains. In this paper we report the results of a pilot study to measure the mechanical properties of human muscles and tendons non-invasively and non-destructively in vivo using vibrational optical coherence tomography (VOCT).

Mechano-vibrational spectroscopy of skin: Are changes in collagen and vascular tissue components early signs of basal cell carcinoma formation?

Background: The modulus and resonant frequency of cancer cells and extracellular matrix are increased in both basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas, and in addition, the collagen stiffness is increased. The organization of the extracellular matrix surrounding cancer cells is clearly different than the extracellular matrix that is seen in normal skin.

Materials And Methods: We have used vibrational optical coherence tomography (VOCT) to measure the resonant frequency and stiffness of collagen, vascular, and reorganized fibrous extracellular matrix components.