The main part of the paper describes and illustrates the clinical examination of the living human cornea with the confocal microscope figures many in color from the normal cornea the cornea with known parthologies and the postsurgical cornea are selected for their educational value photographs of standard light microscopy of fixed human corneal sections are compared with confocal maicroscopic images where appropriate slit lamp color photographs are compared with confocal microscopic . Examination of the corneal surface by in vivo confocal microscopy ivcm allows for objective identification of corneal and conjunctival cell phenotypes to evaluate different epithelialization patterns detection of a corneal conjunctival epithelial transition could be considered as a sign of restored epithelial function following simple limbal epithelial transplantation slet this is a prospective interventional case series we assessed patients with limbal stem cell deficiency lscd by . Confocal microscopy of the cornea this paper provides the clinician and the researcher with an in depth manual on the use of a scanning slit confocal light microscope for the clinical examination and investigation of the living human cornea in vivo the scope of the paper includes a thorough explanation of the principles of various . The optical sectioning ability of confocal microscopy allows high magnification images to be obtained from different depths within a thick tissue specimen and is thus ideally suited to the study of intact tissue in living subjects in vivo confocal microscopy has been used in a variety of corneal research and clinical applications since its development over 25 years ago in this article we review the latest developments in quantitative corneal imaging with the heidelberg retinal tomograph