High-resolution optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging of human kidney ex vivo

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a rapidly emerging imaging modality that can provide non-invasive, cross-sectional, high-resolution images of tissue morphology in situ and in real-time. Previous studies have demonstrated that OCT can non-invasively visualize the pathological changes in the living kidney in real-time using the Munich-Wistar rat model. In this work, we demonstrate, for the first time, the capability of OCT to non-invasively image the human kidney ex vivo. Characteristic kidney structures including the uriniferous tubules, blood vessels, and glomeruli can be readily discerned. And the diameter and volume of the uriniferous tubules can be automatically quantified. Those parameters might be important for the assessment of the donor kidney´s viability prior to transplantation.