Monitoring process of human keloid formation based on second harmonic generation imaging

In this paper, the morphological variation of collagen among the whole dermis from keloid tissue was investigated using second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy. In the deep dermis of keloids, collagen bundles show apparently regular gap. In the middle dermis, the collagen bundles are randomly oriented and loosely arranged in the pattern of fine mesh while the collagen bundles are organized in a parallel manner in the superficial dermis near the epidermis. The developed parameters COI and BD can be used to further quantitatively describe these changes. Our results demonstrate the potential of SHG microscopy to understand the formation process of human keloid scar at the cellular level through imaging collagen variations in different depth of dermis.