Quantitative Analysis of Collagen Distribution in the Aorta Using Birefringence Imaging

Since collagen is one of the major components of the aortic wall and is the toughest in the wall, it may play a vital role in the strength of the aorta. For the quantification of the amount of collagen, its area fraction has been used in histological analysis. Although this method is convenient to know the distribution of collagen, it cannot be used for precise quantification of the collagen volume, because it is hard to determine the local thickness of collagen in the sample from its color due to unsteadiness of the staining density.