Scleroderma, or systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic, autoimmune disorder that manifests in the fibrosis of skin and internal organs. The clinical gold standard used to track SSc disease progression is the modified Rodnan skin score (mRSS), which is based on clinical palpation. Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (SFDI), a widefield, non-contact diffuse optical imaging technology may provide an alternate quantitative and objective method to track progression of SSc by measuring tissue reflectance and optical properties. To investigate this, SFDI measurements were conducted on 10 SSc patients and 8 healthy controls, with 6 patients and 2 controls also being measured longitudinally. We found that there were proportional changes in SFDI metrics (μs' at 851 nm and Rd at 851 nm and 0.2 mm-1) corresponding to SSc progression (measured by mRSS scores and with histopathological metrics), suggesting SFDI could provide an improved method to track SSc progression.
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