Multimodal Morphochemical Tissue Imaging

Modern optics and spectroscopy are offering promising noninvasive solutions to potentially improve diagnostic capability on tissues, as demonstrated by the extensive use of nonlinear laser scanning microscopy for tissue imaging in the past decade. The recent development and integration of multiple nonlinear microscopy techniques in a single instrument has provided new opportunities for integrating morphological and functional information and for correlating the observed molecular and cellular changes with disease behavior. In particular, multimodal nonlinear imaging is able to perform quantitative morpho-chemical analysis in tumor cells and tissue specimens, providing a high-resolution label-free alternative to both histological and immunohistochemical examination of tissues. Although up to now limited to optical research labs, multimodal nonlinear imaging is becoming increasingly popular among medical practitioners and has the potential to find a stable place in a clinical setting in the near future.