Skin Response During Irradiation by Intense Pulsed Light Based on Optical Imaging Technology and Histology

Nonablative light is a novel light source such as intense pulsed light (IPL) treatment for skin disease. The clinical objective of it is to maximize thermal damage to upper dermis while minimizing injury to the epidermis and to decrease potential complications. But many the complications also exist in the clinic. In this study, we developed a new approach to monitor the response of skin tissue irradiated by IPL and measured the attenuation coefficient between the change of the tissue optical properties utilizing fiber based on optical coherence tomography (OCT) technology and conventional histology. OCT is a well-established optical imaging technique that uses low coherence interferometry to produce micrometer-scale resolution images of biological media. The outcome shows that the attenuation coefficient increase after irradiated and then gradually reduces with times; the changes of the total attenuation coefficient increase with the dose.