Corneal cross‐linking (CXL) using ultraviolet‐A (UVA) irradiation with a riboflavin photosensitizer has grown from an interesting concept to a practical clinical treatment for corneal ectatic diseases globally, such as keratoconus. To characterize the corneal structural changes, existing methods such as X‐ray microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, histology and optical coherence tomography (OCT) have been used. However, these methods have various drawbacks such as invasive detection, the impossibility for in vivo measurement, or limited resolution and sensitivity to structural alterations. Here, we report the application of oversampling nanosensitive OCT for probing the corneal structural alterations. The results indicate that the spatial period increases slightly after 30 minutes riboflavin instillation but decreases significantly after 30 minutes UVA irradiation following the Dresden protocol. The proposed noninvasive method can be implemented using existing OCT systems, without any additional components, for detecting nanoscale changes with the potential to assist diagnostic assessment during CXL treatment, and possibly to be a real‐time monitoring tool in clinics.

中文翻译：

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与交联治疗相关的角膜纳米级结构变化的无创检测。

使用核黄素光敏剂通过紫外线-A（UVA）照射进行角膜交联（CXL）已从一个有趣的概念发展为一种针对角膜直肠疾病（例如圆锥角膜）的实用临床治疗方法。为了表征角膜结构变化，已经使用了现有的方法，例如X射线显微镜，透射电子显微镜，组织学和光学相干断层扫描（OCT）。但是，这些方法具有各种缺点，例如侵入性检测，无法进行体内测量或分辨率有限以及对结构改变的敏感性。在这里，我们报告了超采样纳米敏感OCT在探测角膜结构改变中的应用。结果表明，按照Dresden方案，核黄素滴注30分钟后，空间周期略有增加，但在UVA照射30分钟后，空间周期则显着减少。可以使用现有的OCT系统（无需任何其他组件）来实施所提出的无创方法，以检测纳米级变化，从而有可能在CXL治疗期间协助诊断评估，并有可能成为临床中的实时监测工具。