Micro-optical coherence tomography for high-resolution morphologic imaging of cellular and nerval corneal micro-structures

Wartak, Andreas; Schenk, Merle S.; Buehler, Verena; Kassumeh, Stefan A.; Birngruber, Reginald und Tearney, Guillermo J. (2020): Micro-optical coherence tomography for high-resolution morphologic imaging of cellular and nerval corneal micro-structures. In: Biomedical Optics Express, Bd. 11, Nr. 10: S. 5920-5933

Abstract

We demonstrate the highest resolution (1.5x1.5x1 mu m) micrometer optical coherence tomography (mu OCT) imaging of the morphologic micro-structure of excised swine and nonhuman primate corneas. Besides epithelial, stromal, and endothelial cell morphology, this report focuses on investigating the most peripheral corneal nerve fibers, the nerve fibers of the subbasal plexus (SBP). Alterations of SBP nerve density and composition are reportedly linked to major neurologic disorders, such as diabetic neuropathy, potentially indicating earliest onsets of denervation. Here, the fine, hyperreflective, epithelial nerve structures located just above Bowman's membrane, are i) visualized using our mu OCT prototype, ii) validated by comparison to fluorescence confocal microscopy (including selective immunohistochemical staining), and ill) segmented using state-of-the-art image processing. Here, we also introduce polarization sensitive (PS) mu OCT imaging, demonstrating, to the best of our knowledge, the highest resolution corneal PS-OCT scans reported to date. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Medizin
• Themengebiete: 600 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften > 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
• ISSN: 2156-7085
• Sprache: Englisch