Speckle reduction in optical coherence tomography images using tissue viscoelasticity

We present a technique to reduce speckle in opti- calcoherencetomographyimagesofsofttissues.Anaverage is formed over a set of B-scans that have been decorrelated by viscoelastic creep strain. The necessary correction for the deformation-induced spatial distortions between B-scans is achievedthroughgeometricalco-registrationusinganaffine transformation. Speckle reduction by up to a factor of 1.65 is shown in images of tissue-mimicking soft fibrin phantoms and excised human lymph node tissue with no observable loss of spatial resolution. C