Label-free multi-photon imaging of dysplasia in Barrett's esophagus

Barrett's esophagus (BE) is a metaplastic disorder where dysplastic and early cancerous changes are invisible to the naked eye and where the practice of blind biopsy is hampered by large sampling errors. Multi-photon microscopy (MPM) has emerged as an alternative solution for fast and label-free diagnostic capability for identifying the histological features with sub-micron accuracy. We developed a compact, inexpensive MPM system by using a handheld mode-locked fiber laser operating at 1560nm to study mucosal biopsies of BE. The combination of back-scattered THG, back-reflected forward THG and SHG signals generate images of cell nuclei and collagen, leading to label-free diagnosis in Barrett's.