Optical clearing of archive-compatible paraffin embedded tissue for multiphoton microscopy

Standard histopathology techniques (including paraffin embedding) are incompatible with thick tissue multiphoton imaging, and standard clearing techniques on those specimens destroy some molecular information. We demonstrate multiphoton imaging in specimens prepared according to standard histopathology techniques. This permits unlabeled 3-dimensional histology on archival tissue banks, which is of great value in evaluating prognostic indicators. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America