Non-destructive detection of defects in artificial skin tissue by Optical Coherence Tomography

The application of optical coherence tomography (OCT) in tissue engineering facilities offers great potential for the automated detection of defects or inhomogeneities in tissue products. This non-invasive and non-destructive measurement technique allows the high speed generation of two dimensional cross sections of tissue with micron resolution. By the integration into a tissue production facility, the monitoring and quality control of the products will be possible. This allows the selective exclusion of products with insufficient quality from the production chain. In a first study, OCT tomograms of artificial skin equivalents were acquired and compared with microscopic images of associated histologies. As a result, a well-defined analogy of the obtained images is presented. Hence, OCT provides a powerful measurement technique for detecting defects and inhomogeneities in tissue products.