Angiographic optical coherence tomography imaging of hemangiomas and port wine birthmarks

The Vbeam Perfecta was used to treat several subjects with both hemangiomas and port wine birthmarks. Blood vessel depth and diameter were then evaluated with optical coherence tomography.

PubMed Reference:Waibel JS, Holmes J, Rudnick A, et al. Lasers Surg Med. 2018 Mar 22.

Study Details:

  • 49 subjects (21 hemangioma subjects and 28 PWB subjects), ranging from 3 months - 73 years old, and Fitzpatrick skin types I-V were enrolled.
  • Blood vessel depth and diameter was evaluated with optical coherence tomography (OCT).
  • Treatments with 595nm-PDL (Vbeam Perfecta): 7-10 millimeter spot size; fluence 7.0 - 9.5 J/cm2, pulse duration 1.5 - 10 msec, and 30/20 - 20/10 cooling).

Study Results:

  • OCT images revealed that the blood vessel patterns in vascular lesions appeared dramatically different from that seen in normal skin.
  • Highly heterogeneous blood vessel patterns with vessel diameters ranging from 20 to 160 μm.
  • Largest vessels in the range 120 to 160 μm diameter were mainly at 0.50 millimeter depth.
  • PWB tended to have larger vessel diameters than hemangiomas but not necessarily higher density.
  • Vascular OCT may be used to give information to individualize laser settings.