Hybrid confocal Raman endomicroscopy for morpho-chemical tissue characterization

Confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) offers imaging of tissue microarchitecture and has emerged as a promising tool for in vivo clinical diagnosis of cancer across many organs. CLE, however, can show high inter-observer dependency and does not provide information about tissue molecular composition. In contrast, Raman spectroscopy is a label-free optical technique that provides detailed biomolecular compositional information but offers limited or no morphological information. Here we present a novel hybrid fiber-optic confocal Raman endomicroscopy system for morpho-chemical tissue imaging and analysis. The developed confocal endomicroscopy system is based on a novel detection scheme for rejecting Raman silica fiber interference permitting simultaneous CLE imaging and Raman spectral acquisition of tissues through a coherent fiber bundle. We show that this technique enables real-time microscopic visualization of tissue architecture as well as simultaneous pointwise label-free biomolecular characterization and fingerprinting of tissue paving the way for multimodal diagnostics at endoscopy. (c) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

This article presents a novel hybrid fiber-optic confocal Raman endomicroscopy system that allows for simultaneous imaging and analysis of tissue morphology and chemical composition, paving the way for multimodal diagnostics during endoscopy.