Towards non‐invasive tissue hydration measurements with optical coherence tomography

Abstract

AbstractThe attenuation coefficient () measured by optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been used to determine tissue hydration. Previous dual‐wavelength OCT systems could not attain the needed precision, which we attribute to the absence of wavelength‐dependent scattering of tissue in the underlying model. Assuming that scattering can be described using two parameters, we propose a triple/quadrupole‐OCT system to achieve clinically relevant precision in water volume fraction. In this study, we conduct a quantitative analysis to determine the necessary precision of measurements and compare it with numerical simulation. Our findings emphasize that achieving a clinically relevant assessment of a 2% water fraction requires determining the attenuation coefficient with a remarkable precision of 0.01 . This precision threshold is influenced by the chosen wavelength for attenuation measurement and can be enhanced through the inclusion of a fourth wavelength range.