Currently, clinical in-vivo imaging of the human limbus cellular structure is only possible with in-vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM). However, IVCM requires physical contact with the imaged object, and may cause incidental tearing or inflammation of the limbal tissue. We present a line-field, spectral-domain OCT system (LF-SD-OCT) that can generate volumetric, cellular resolution images of biological tissue in-vivo and without contact. The system provides 1.7 µm axial and 2.2 × 3.1 µm lateral resolution in tissue and 2.5 kHz frame rate. The quality of healthy human limbus images acquired with LF-SD-OCT is comparable to that of IVCM.
|