New Laser Microscope Can Diagnose Skin Cancer

A new type of laser scanning confocal microscope has been developed by physicists, which could diagnose skin cancer in a single snap shot.

Typical LSCMs take 3-D images of thick tissue samples by visualizing thin slices within that tissue one layer at a time.

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Sometimes scientists supplement these microscopes with spectrographs, which are devices that measure the pattern of wavelengths, or "colours", in the light reflected off of a piece of tissue.

This pattern of wavelengths acts like a fingerprint, which scientists can use to identify a particular substance within the sample.

But the range of wavelengths used so far with these devices has been narrow, limiting their uses.

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The new microscope has overcome this problem.

Unlike other combination "confocal microscope plus spectrograph" devices, the new machine is able to gather the spectrographic information from every point in a sample, at a wide range of wavelengths, and in a single scan.

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To achieve this, the authors illuminate the sample with multiple colours of laser light at once - a sort of "laser rainbow" - that includes visible light as well as infrared.

This allows scientists to gather a full range of information about the wavelengths of light reflected off of every point within the sample.

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Using this method, the researchers took high-resolution pictures of the edge of a silicon wafer and of metallic letters painted onto a piece of silicon less than half a millimetre wide.

They also demonstrated that it is possible to apply this technique to a tissue sample (in this case, chicken skin) without destroying it.

With further testing, the researchers say the microscope could be used to detect early signs of melanoma; until then, it may be useful for non-medical applications, such as inspecting the surface of semiconductors.

The discovery has been described in a paper accepted to the AIP's new journal AIP Advances.

Source-ANI