Monitoring laser treatment of port wine stains using phase-resolved optical Doppler tomography

We used a novel phase-resolved optical Doppler tomographic (ODT) technique, with very high flow velocity sensitivity and high spatial resolution, to image blood flow in port wine stain (PWS) birthmarks in human skin. The variance of blood flow velocity is used to locate the PWS vessels in addition to the regular ODT images. Our device combines an ODT system and laser so that PWS blood flow can be monitored in situ before and after treatment. To our knowledge, this is the first clinical application of ODT to provide a fast semi-quantitative evaluation of the efficacy of PWS laser therapy in situ and in real-time.