The use of optical coherence tomography for morphological study of scaffolds

Aimed at possible widening of the optical coherence tomography (OCT) field of application, an attempt is made to use OCT in tissue engineering and cell transplantology as a tool for morphological studies of substrate materials by the example of scaffolds. By means of the traditional fibreoptical OCT scheme the images of inner structure of scaffolds are obtained, and simultaneously the spatial distribution of the intralipid flow velocity is reconstructed using the Doppler OCT. It is shown that combined use of traditional OCT and Doppler OCT schemes allows revealing the regions of the scaffold demonstrating optimal effect of shear stress, which is a key factor of cell growth.