Label-free optical imaging of lymphatic vessels within tissue beds in vivo.

Lymphatic vessels are a part of circulatory system in vertebrates that maintain tissue fluid homeostasis and drain excess fluid and large cells that cannot easily find their way back into venous system. Due to the lack of non-invasive monitoring tools, lymphatic vessels are known as forgotten circulation. However, lymphatic system plays an important role in diseases such as cancer and inflammatory conditions. In this paper, we start to briefly review the current existing methods for imaging lymphatic vessels, mostly involving dye/targeting cell injection. We then show the capability of optical coherence tomography (OCT) for label-free non-invasive in vivo imaging of lymph vessels and nodes. One of the advantages of using OCT over other imaging modalities is its ability to assess label-free blood flow perfusion that can be simultaneously observed along with lymphatic vessels for imaging the microcirculatory system within tissue beds. Imaging the microcirculatory system including blood and lymphatic vessels can be utilized for imaging and better understanding pathologic mechanisms and treatment technique development in some critical diseases such as inflammation, malignant cancer angiogenesis and metastasis.