Correlating optical biopsy with histopathology of wounds under topical intervention with honey

Non-invasive visualization of wound bed with depth information is important to understand the tissue repair under therapeutic interventions. In this context, present study performs skin swept source-optical coherence tomography (i.e. optical biopsy/OCT) and correlates findings with histo-pathological observations on different types of traumatic non-healing wounds under honey dressing. Correlation between OCT and microscopic observations were explored especially in respect to progressive growth and maturation of the epithelial and sub-epithelial components. Characteristic transition of uniform hypo-lucid band for de-pigmented zone to wavy highly lucid band for the pigmented zone in the OCT images could be directly correlated with the microscopic findings on transformation of flattened pre-mature epithelium of de-pigmented area to thicker and matured epithelium with rete-pegs in pigmented zone. This correlated evaluation of multimodal images demonstrates the applicability of SS-OCT in wound research and importance of integrated approach in validation of newer technology.