Normal human knee articular cartilage

Copyright information:Taken from "High-resolution optical coherence tomographic imaging of osteoarthritic cartilage during open knee surgery"Arthritis Research & Therapy 2005;7(2):R318-R323.Published online 17 Jan 2005PMCID:PMC1065329.Copyright © 2005 Li et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. The optical coherence tomography (OCT) image of the cartilage is relatively thick and uniform. The pronounced banding pattern on the OCT image is due to the birefringence of the highly organized structure of the collagen (red arrows). The alternating maximum and minimum intensities are due to changes in back scattering as light travels through the tissue while the plane of light polarization rotates. Previous work has shown that it is due to the presence of organized collagen that alters the polarization state of the light. Note: darker gray scale represents higher-intensity back scattering. The corresponding histology is shown in .