Could a novel non-contact photoacoustic microscopy technique that developed at the University of Waterloo provide pathologists with a time-saving alternative to traditional H&E staining and brightfield microscopy imaging? The new publication in scientific reports led by Professor Parsin Haji Reza and his team at photomedicine labs suggests this technique may even be able to enable real-time #pathology assessment. This work recently highlighted by Nikon Instruments.
By leveraging intrinsic contrast, photoacoustic remote sensing (PARS) technique can produce sub-cellular visualizations of human tissues like those provided by conventional stained specimens currently used by pathologists. In this article, the capabilities of PARS in recovering these structures is examined across a wide range of clinically relevant tissue preparation stages ranging from prepared slides to freshly excised mammalian tissues. This represents the first report of any imaging technique capable of imaging such a wide variety of specimens without requiring any special sample preparation or modifications. Such capabilities are particularly exciting considering that PARS may be able to drastically reduce clinical feedback times by requiring significantly less tissue processing steps as compared to the current gold standard methods which may take up to several weeks.