In-vivo human corneal nerve imaging using Fourier-domain OCT

We have imaged human corneal nerve bundles by using real-time Fourier-domain OCT (FD-OCT). Corneal nerves contribute to the maintenance of healthy ocular surface owing to their trophic influences on the corneal epithelium. The FD-OCT system was based on a swept laser of a 50 kHz sweeping rate and 1.31 mu m center wavelength. At the area including sclera, limbus, and cornea, we could successfully get the in-vivo tomograms of the corneal nerve bundles. The scan range was 5 x 5mm. In this study, the A-scan images in each B-scan were realigned to have a flat air-surface boundary in the final B-scan image. With this effort, we could align corneal nerve bundle in a same depth and get the 3D image showing the branched and threadlike corneal nerve bundles.