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 enables the high speed generation of two dimensional cross sections of tissue with micron resolution. The integration of an OCT device into a tissue production facility allows the monitoring and quality control of tissue engineering products. By the selective exclusion of tissue products with insufficient quality features a high degree in production standard is guaranteed. 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. The most common defect in terms of hole structures that occurs due to a procedural steps could be detected. Further characteristics like the topography, homogeneity and layer structure was analysed. Hence, OCT provides a powerful measurement technique to monitor the quality of tissue products in automated tissue engineering facilities.