Tissue Based Diagnostic Tools

Tissue Based Diagnostic Tools

Tissue based diagnostic tools are used to support diagnosis and clinical decision making for a range of diseases including cancer. Traditionally, these tests are conducted on samples that are collected from a biopsy, sliced into thin sections and then stained with Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) for visualization. These sections are then manually inspected by pathologists to make a diagnosis. This process is time-consuming, requires specialized expertise and can be subject to human variability.

Recent tissue based diagnostic tools in tissue-based imaging are transforming this paradigm. These new systems offer a more streamlined workflow by removing the need for thin sectioning. This article outlines a number of new technologies that enable direct to digital imaging of intact tissue from fresh or fixed specimens, bypassing the step of glass slide preparation.

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During this process, short-wavelength ultraviolet light is used to excite intrinsic and dye-enhanced signals in the tissue that are captured by a camera system. The resulting images are then processed using computational methods to generate H&E-like views that are familiar to pathologists.

This new technology is rapidly expanding into a broad array of applications for the pathology lab, from identifying areas in WSI that are likely to contain tumours to generating regions of interest for immunohistochemistry (IHC) scoring. It also provides a practical alternative for obtaining RNA and DNA from frozen tissues, such as biopsies, to support molecular biomarker studies that would be impossible to perform on FFPE.