Dec 4 2010
Scientists at the University of Illinois have developed a new laser technique called the nonlinear interferometric vibrational imaging (NIVI), which produces tissues’ color-coded images that describe tumor boundaries clearly and quickly with over 99% accuracy.
The NIVI technique estimates and develops the images using the molecular composition of the cells rather than focusing on the structure of the tissue or cell. Cancer-affected cells have high protein concentration, while normal cells have high lipid concentration. Scientists use this difference to identify the cancerous and normal tissues. Each molecule in a cell has a specific vibrational state and while improving the resonance of the vibration, it generates a signal, which in turn helps in detecting cells having high concentration of molecules.
In the NIVI technique, one of two light rays performs as a reference and is used to agitate the molecules in a tissue strain to produce the signals. The signals thus produced along with the beam eradicate the background noise and separate the signals of the molecules. The spectrum thus produced is statistically analyzed and generates a color-coded image at each tissue point. The color-coded image for cancerous and normal cells is red and blue, respectively. From the blue-red color-coding, the pathologists can easily map the boundaries of tumor, which previously proved to be a challenging work for them.
The scientists are trying to regulate the frequency of the laser beams to test other forms of molecules and are exploring novel sources of laser for real-time imaging and making the NIVI technique small and transportable. They are also working on new light delivery devices such as probes, needles and catheters that can eliminate the sample-removing procedure in tissue analysis.
Source: http://illinois.edu