New Cellular Imager of Excised Surgical Tissue

A video-rate cellular imager based on near infrared confocal microscopy is designed to produce enlarged digital images of cellular and nuclear structures in unstained and unsectioned excised surgical tissue in real-time. Depending on the surgical situation, the surgeon may elect to continue with a procedure while conventional pathologic sample preparation and analysis proceed in parallel.

Called VivaScope, the imager is the product of Lucid, Inc. (Henrietta, NY, USA).
Depending on the tissue type, clear images can be obtained at depths in the tissue of up to 500 mm from the surface. Displaying the images at video rates produces rapid high magnification visualization and survey of the tissue sample.

The VivaScope was the subject of a paper presented at the International Meeting for Endocrine Surgery in London (England) and Lille (France) this year by W. Matthew White, who received the Resident Research Award for his paper. The paper, A Novel, Noninvasive Technique for Intraoperative Assessment of Parathyroid Glands: Confocal Reflectance Microscopy was based on studies made by White with the VivaScope. White is a research fellow in otolaryngology/head and neck surgery at Harvard Medical School.

The ability of confocal digital imagers to image skin in its native state and to image freshly biopsied tissue without fixing, sectioning, and staining is also very useful for dermatologic diagnosis and treatment, notes Lucid



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