title: Multiphoton morpho-functional imaging of healthy colon mucosa, adenomatous polyp and adenocarcinoma.
abstract: Two-photon spectral resolved imaging was used to image fresh human biopsies of colon tissue and to characterize healthy colon mucosa, adenomatous polyp and adenocarcinoma by means of a morpho-functional analysis. Morphological examination, performed using endogenous tissue fluorescence, discriminated adenomatous and adenocarcinoma tissues from normal mucosa in terms of cellular asymmetry and nucleus-to-cytoplasm ratio. Good agreement was found between multiphoton images and histological examination performed on the same samples. Further characterization, performed by means of spectral-resolved analysis of NADH and FAD fluorescence, demonstrated an altered metabolic activity in both adenomatous and adenocarcinoma tissues compared to healthy mucosa. This morpho-functional approach may represent a powerful method to be used in combination with endoscopy for in vivo optical diagnosis of colon cancer and may be extended to other tissues.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Optics, National Research Council (INO-CNR), Largo E. Fermi 6, Florence, I-50125, Italy ; European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Via N. Carrara 1, Sesto Fiorentino, I-50019, Italy.
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cicchi
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sturiale
authors.forename: Gabriella
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nesi
authors.forename: Dimitrios
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kapsokalyvas
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Alemanno
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tonelli
authors.forename: Francesco S
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Pavone
keywords: (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging; (180.4315) Nonlinear microscopy