Combining tape stripping and non-invasive reflectance confocal microscopy : an in vivo model to study skin damage

BACKGROUND: Evaluation of (immuno)histological and cell biological changes in damaged skin requires often an invasive skin biopsy, making in vivo models inappropriate to study skin damage. Reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) might overcome this limitation. Therefore, we evaluated the use of a tape-stripping model in combination with RCM to provide morphological data on skin damage and recovery. METHODS: In 25 volunteers, a tape-stripping stimulus was applied. The skin was imaged with RCM during 1 week and 3 mm punch biopsies were obtained. RESULTS: Strong correlations between epidermal thickness determined by RCM and conventional histological measurements were found. RCM thickness measurements correlated well with epidermal proliferation. The 10x or 15x repeated tape-stripping resulted in skin damage similar to acute stripping. Mild repeated tape-stripping showed no skin damage. CONCLUSION: Overall, we demonstrated that non-invasive RCM in combination with tape-stripping could be used as model to obtain morphological and cell biological data on skin-material interactions