Perspectives, potentials and trends of ex vivo and in vivo optical molecular pathology

It is pivotal for medical applications, such as noninvasive histopathologic characterization of tissue, to realize label-free and molecule-specific representation of morphologic and biochemical composition in real-time with subcellular spatial resolution. This unmet clinical need requires new approaches for rapid and reliable real-time assessment of pathologies to complement established diagnostic tools. Photonic imaging combined with digitalization offers the potential to provide the clinician the requested information both under in vivo and ex vivo conditions. This report summarizes photonic approaches and their use in combination with image processing, machine learning and augmented virtual reality that might solve current challenges in modern medicine. Details are given for pathology, intraoperative diagnosis in head and neck cancer and endoscopic diagnosis in gastroenterology.