Combining Near Infrared Fluorescent Imaging for Calcification and Inflammation in Vascular Tissue Samples Ex Vivo

Quantification of vascular lesions in models of vascular calcification is crucial for testing novel treatments, but remains a challenging endeavor. Conventional methods include Oil-Red-O staining of whole tissue samples, calcium quantification in incinerated samples, or stereoisometric histologic processing. While most techniques offer fairly high levels of reliability, all of them share the fact that samples are not available for other assays following the analysis, as tissue is altered or destroyed in the course of the procedure. Furthermore, none is capable of measuring both calcification and inflammation at the same time. Here we present a novel technique for the simultaneous quantification of vascular inflammation and calcification, after which samples are still available for further histologic processing.