Label-free monitoring of colonic cancer progression using multiphoton microscopy

Real-time histology or virtual biopsy for the diagnosis of colonic cancer is of great medical significance. In this work, we show that label-free multiphoton imaging is feasible and effective in monitoring colonic cancer progression by providing cellular and subcellular details in fresh, unfixed, unstained colonic specimens. Our results also demonstrate the capability of using tissue quantitative analysis of the redox ratio for quantifying colonic cancer progression. These results suggest that multiphoton microscopy has potential to become an in situ histological tool, which is free from the labeling requirement of conventional methods, for the early diagnosis and detection of malignant lesions in the colon.