Combination of pipette aspiration and OCT: A novel method for frequency-dependent elasticity assessment of silicone tissue phantoms

Measuring the frequency-dependent material properties of soft tissues is a challenging task, but it is crucial to understanding their function. This work presents a novel setup that combines optical coherence tomography and dynamic pipette aspiration to simultaneously measure the dynamic Young's modulus and high-resolution optical coherence tomography images. The procedure applies a sinusoidal pressure fluctuation to silicone tissue phantoms of varying stiffness and analyses the optical coherence tomography images to determine the resulting displacement. The Young's modulus is calculated by normalizing the pressure and displacement data to the pipette radius. This approach accurately measures Young's modulus and reveals its frequency dependence. This novel technique paves the way for future investigations into microscale tissue mechanics and a deep analysis of the tissue properties.