The Application of Optical Coherence Tomography in Musculoskeletal Disease

Figure 14

The supraspinatus tendon, enthesis, and humerus are well defined. The banding in the tendon is due to polarization rotation caused by healthy collagen which would have been previously lost in diseased areas. For histological comparison, this sample was stained with both Masson’s Trichrome, to expose any structural abnormalities, and picrosirius red, to determine collagen content using a polarization filter. OCT studies in the musculoskeletal system of animals and in vivo in humans offer the potential of understanding mechanisms and identifying new therapeutic approaches, of which this image is an example. Image courtesy of Vercollone et al. [13].