Towards Bronchoscopic Functional CFTR Assessment using a Short Circuit Current Measurement Probe.

The epithelial lining of luminal organs provides an immune barrier against external factors and regulates transport of nutrients, ions, and water into the body. Several conditions are associated with a breakdown or dysfunction of the epithelial lining. Short circuit current (I) measurement using a bulky, expensive, and hard to deploy system known as the Ussing chamber is the gold standard for evaluation of epithelial transport function but requires tissue excision.

Imaging human coronary cholesterol/urate crystals with cross-polarized micro-optical coherence tomography.

Introduction: Birefringent crystals such as monosodium-urate (MSU) and cholesterol crystals (CC) likely contribute to the progression of coronary artery disease (CAD) due to their potential to exacerbate inflammation through inflammatory cytokine activation. Here, we present cross-polarized micro-optical coherence tomography (CP-µOCT) for visualizing individual birefringent crystals in human coronary arteries.

Methods And Results: Human cadaver coronary arteries with a history of CAD with or without gout were dissected for CP-µOCT imaging.

Dynamic micro-optical coherence tomography enables structural and metabolic imaging of the mammalian cochlea.

Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) is caused by damage to the mechanosensory hair cells and auditory neurons of the cochlea. The development of imaging tools that can directly visualize or provide functional information about a patient's cochlear cells is critical to identify the pathobiological defect and determine the cells' receptiveness to emerging SNHL treatments. However, the cochlea's small size, embedded location within dense bone, and sensitivity to perturbation have historically precluded high-resolution clinical imaging.

Emerging Hybrid Intracoronary Imaging Technologies and Their Applications in Clinical Practice and Research.

Intravascular ultrasound and optical coherence tomography are used with increasing frequency for the care of coronary patients and in research studies. These imaging tools can identify culprit lesions in acute coronary syndromes, assess coronary stenosis severity, guide percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and detect vulnerable plaques and patients. However, they have significant limitations that have stimulated the development of multimodality intracoronary imaging catheters, which provide improvements in assessing vessel wall pathology and guiding PCI.