Three-dimensional high-resolution optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging of human kidney

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a rapidly emerging imaging modality that can non-invasively provide cross-sectional, high-resolution images of tissue morphology in situ and in real-time. Previous studies have demonstrated that OCT is capable of accurately visualizing the pathological changes in the living kidney in vivo using the Munich-Wistar rat model. In this work, we establish, for the first time, the capability of OCT to image the intact human kidney ex vivo. Characteristic kidney anatomic structures including the blood vessels, uriniferous tubules, glomeruli, and kidney capsules can be readily discerned. The diameter and volume parameters of these structures can also be automatically quantified. These two parameters may be critical in clinical applications such as the assessment of the donor kidney´s viability prior to transplantation, or image the kidney responses to ischemic insult.