Body regions have an impact on the collagen/elastin index of the skin measured by non-invasive in vivo vertical two-photon microscopy

Abstract

It is known that the collagen and elastin fibre structures are changing with age. There is little knowledge about the influence of body area as these investigations have been limited for ethical reasons, so far. Thus, modified non-invasive two-photon microscopy was used providing vertical optical sections of second harmonic generation and autofluorescence to calculate the collagen-to-elastin ratio and its alterations depending on the investigated body site in vivo. The results of this study indicate that the impact of different body areas could be higher than the influence of age and should be considered in future studies.