Feasibility of digitally stained multimodal confocal mosaics to simulate histopathology

Fluorescence confocal mosaicing microscopy of tissue biopsies

stained with acridine orange has been shown to accurately

identify tumors and with an overall sensitivity of 96.6% and specificity

of 89.2%. However, fluorescence shows only nuclear detail similar to

hematoxylin in histopathology and does not show collagen or cytoplasm,

which may provide necessary negative contrast information

similar to eosin used in histopathology. Reflectance mode contrast is

sensitive to collagen and cytoplasm without staining. To further improve

sensitivity and specificity, digitally stained confocal mosaics

combine confocal fluorescence and reflectance images in a multimodal

pseudo-color image to mimic the appearance of histopathology

with hematoxylin and eosin and facilitate the introduction of confocal

microscopy into the clinical realm. © 2009 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation

Engineers. DOI: 10.1117/1.3149853