Fast stimulated Raman imaging for intraoperative gastro-intestinal cancer detection

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rapid stimulated Raman imaging technique that produces real-time, histology-quality images of gastrointestinal tissues, enabling quick intraoperative cancer detection without traditional sample preparation.

Contribution

The study develops a fast, label-free stimulated Raman histology method for intraoperative GI cancer detection, providing near-instantaneous, high-quality images comparable to standard histopathology.

Findings

SRH images closely match HES histology for GI tissues

Fast SRH captures all necessary information at the pixel level

Enables real-time intraoperative tissue analysis

Abstract

Conventional haematoxylin, eosin and saffron (HES) histopathology, currently the gold-standard for pathological diagnosis of cancer, requires extensive sample preparations that are achieved within time scales that are not compatible with intra-operative situations where quick decisions must be taken. Providing to pathologists a close to real-time technology revealing tissue structures at the cellular level with HES histologic quality would provide an invaluable tool for surgery guidance with evident clinical benefit. Here, we specifically develop a stimulated Raman imaging based framework that demonstrates gastro-intestinal (GI) cancer detection of unprocessed human surgical specimens. The generated stimulated Raman histology (SRH) images combine chemical and collagen information to mimic conventional HES histopathology staining. We report excellent agreements between SRH and HES images acquire on the same patients for healthy, pre-cancerous and cancerous colon and pancreas tissue sections. We also develop a novel fast SRH imaging modality that captures at the pixel level all the information necessary to provide instantaneous SRH images. These developments pave the way for instantaneous label free GI histology in an intra-operative context.