ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Biomechanics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1576809
This article is part of the Research TopicOptobiomechanics of the EyeView all 10 articles
Investigation of corneal hydration and the impact of cross-linking therapy on water retention using Brillouin spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography
Provisionally accepted
Jan Rix1*
Svea Steuer2Jonas Golde1,2,3Fadi Husein4Felix Lochmann4Steven Melcher2Gerald Steiner2
Roberta Galli1Julia Walther1Frederik Raiskup4Ramin Khoramnia4Robert Herber4- 1TU Dresden, Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Fetscherstrasse 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany
- 2TU Dresden, Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Clinical Sensoring and Monitoring, Fetscherstrasse 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany
- 3Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS, Winterbergstrasse 28, 01277 Dresden, Germany
- 4Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, TU Dresden, Fetscherstrasse 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany
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Recently, Brillouin spectroscopy has been proposed as a promising non-invasive tool to evaluate corneal biomechanics, e.g. during corneal cross-linking (CXL) treatment. However, the impact of corneal hydration on the Brillouin shift hampers straightforward interpretation of the measurements, especially when judging on the success of the CXL procedure. Therefore, in this work, we first quantify the effect of corneal (de)hydration on the Brillouin shift revealing that reliable measurements are only possible under constant hydration conditions, which was subsequently achieved by immersing porcine eyes in solution and waiting until an equilibrium state was reached. Investigations showed that Brillouin spectroscopy evaluates the CXL effect mainly indirectly via reduced water uptake, while polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography evaluates the CXL effect directly via changes in collagen fiber alignment and is therefore insensitive to corneal hydration. Raman spectroscopy is not indicating any alterations in the molecular structure revealing that new cross-links are not created due to the CXL procedure. Compared to large water retention in balanced salt solution, the missing water uptake in dextran-based (16%) solution hampers the evaluation of the CXL effect by Brillouin spectroscopy.
Keywords: Cornea, Corneal cross-linking, Brillouin, Raman, PS-OCT, hydration
Received: 14 Feb 2025; Accepted: 11 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rix, Steuer, Golde, Husein, Lochmann, Melcher, Steiner, Galli, Walther, Raiskup, Khoramnia and Herber. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jan Rix, TU Dresden, Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Fetscherstrasse 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany
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