Orientation analysis of collagen fibers in healing tendon by using second-harmonic-generation microscopy

Tendon rupture is a trauma that is difficult to fully recover from. Therefore, non-destructive and non-invasive evaluation method for the tendon healing is strongly required. In this study, we performed the orientation analysis of collagen fiber in healing tendon by two-dimensional Fourier transform (2D-FT) of SHG image. The extracted 2D-FT power spectra imply the correlation with the degree of the tendon healing. These results indicate that SHG microscopy has a unique potential as a non-destructive and non-invasive indicator of tendon healing.