In an important step toward endoscopic diagnosis of cancer, researchers have developed a handheld fibre-optic probe that can be used to perform multiple nonlinear imaging techniques without the need for tissue staining. The new multimodal imaging probe uses an ultrafast laser to create nonlinear optical effects in tissue that can reveal cancer and other diseases. Today, cancer is typically diagnosed by removing a bit of tissue with a biopsy and then sending that tissue to a specially trained pathologist who stains the tissue and uses a microscope to look for cancerous cells. The ability for doctors to skip the biopsy and use a multimodal imaging endoscope to diagnose cancer on the spot would save valuable time and could also allow surgeons to more easily differentiate between cancerous and healthy tissue during surgery. With the new probe, imaging techniques that previously required bulky table-top instruments can be performed with a handheld device measuring only 8 millimetres in diameter, about the same diameter as a ballpoint pen. If miniaturised further, the probe could easily be integrated into an endoscope for nonlinear multimodal imaging inside the body. "We hope that, one day, multimodal endoscopic imaging techniques could help doctors make quick decisions during surgery, without the need for taking biopsies, using staining treatments or performing complex histopathological procedures," said Jürgen Popp, from Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology in Jena, Germany and the paper's lead author. The researchers detail their new handheld probe in Optica, the Optical Society's journal for high impact research. It is the first miniaturised probe for multimodal biological imaging to incorporate a multicore imaging fibre, a type of optical fibre consisting of several thousand light-guiding elements. This special imaging fibre allowed the researchers to keep all moving parts and electric power outside of the probe head, making the probe easy and safe to use in the body. The researchers have tested the probe with many types of tissue samples, but because it is currently designed for forward view mode, the primary applications of the probe would likely include skin, brain or head and neck surgery. They are working on implementing a side view mode that could be used to investigate hollow organs and arteries such as the colon, bladder or aorta.

A mini microscope


"The new probe serves as a miniaturised microscope that uses near-infrared lasers to investigate tissue," said Popp. "Different components of biological tissue react differently to the excitation lasers, and their unique response gives us information about the molecular composition and morphology within the tissue." The handheld multimodal imaging probe can simultaneously acquire several types of images: coherent anti-stokes Raman scattering, second harmonic generation and two-photon excited auto-fluorescence. These nonlinear imaging techniques have been shown to be useful for clinical diagnostics, including identifying cancerous cells, but it has been difficult to miniaturise the required instrumentation for use inside the body. The probe's reduced size comes from its use of gradient index, or GRIN, lenses to focus the laser light. Compared to traditional spherical lenses that use complicated shaped surfaces to focus light, GRIN lenses can be made very small because they focus light through continuous refractive index changes within the lens material. Popp's research team collaborated with scientists from Grintech Gmbh who designed GRIN lenses only 1.8 millimetres in diameter and helped incorporate the robust lens assembly into a small aluminium housing. Endoscopes designed for nonlinear imaging commonly use moving mirrors and electromechanical devices for point by point laser scanning in the probe head. Using the multicore imaging fibre allowed the researchers to further reduce the device's size by moving the laser scanning out of the probe head and away from the sample site. Because the fibre's thousands of light guiding elements, or cores, preserve the spatial relationship of the light between the two ends of the fibre, the scanning can be performed at the opposite end of the fibre, making an endoscopic approach much easier. "Compared to other endoscopic nonlinear imaging approaches, our fibre probe stands out due to its simplicity," said Popp. "Since no moving parts are incorporated in the probe head, possible misalignments in the optics are limited and the probe's overall lifetime is increased."

Multimodal imaging of tissue


The researchers demonstrated the unique capabilities of the multicore imaging fibre by moving one end of the probe across a sample and transferring the acquired images to the other end. "This is not a trivial task since the cores of the imaging fibre differ in size and shape, hindering efficient and homogeneous coupling of the excitation lasers," said Popp. "Furthermore, we had to deal with unwanted effects like different wavelengths interacting inside the fibre and core-to-core light coupling." They also demonstrated that the probe could acquire separate coherent anti-stokes Raman scattering, second harmonic generation and two-photon excited autofluorescence images of healthy human skin-tissue samples with a resolution of 2048 x 2048 pixels for a scanned area of 300 x 300 microns. This resolution and field of view is sufficient for identifying tumour borders, and the probe can be moved over the tissue surface to get an overview of the affected area. The researchers are working to use algorithms to improve the quality of the multimodal images, which appear pixelated because of the structure of the multicore imaging fibre. As a next step, they plan to test the probe in animal models and with patients in a clinical setting. Journal reference: Aleksandar Lukic, Sebastian Dochow, Hyeonsoo Bae, Gregor Matz, Ines Latka, Bernhard Messerschmidt, Michael Schmitt, Jürgen Popp. ‘Endoscopic fiber probe for nonlinear spectroscopic imaging.’ Optica, 2017; 4 (5): 496 DOI: 10.1364/optica.4.000496