Skin microvasculature determined using OCT angiography: first evidence of its relation with aging

Abstract

Abstract The human skin changes with time, presenting different appearances and even properties. Peripheral vascularization is one of the crucial factors that affect skin growth. The variation of vascularization with age is a topic that always arouses great interest. The quality of the skin, concerning age, can be an important factor in interventions for functional skin improvement and understanding the skin-related aging process. In particular, the statistical distribution of the size of peripheral vascularization components and their indicators of evolution with age is a quantifier that is not common in conventional medicine. Their introduction is the main objective of this report. In this work, we use optical coherent tomography angiography to investigate skin microvasculature changes in men and women from different age groups. Using our algorithms, we were able to assess the vessel density and the distribution of average vessel caliber as a function of age. The vessel’s density distribution shifts to smaller vessels’ diameters values according to aging. This finding may indicate a way of evaluating physiological skin aging and proposing alternatives for its delay. Some possible consequences of these findings are also discussed.