Monitoring Tumor Progression Of Colorectal Adenocarcinoma Using Multiphoton Microscopy

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancer and leading cause of cancer death worldwide,85percent of colorectal cancer belongs to adenocarcinoma. Multiphoton microscopy (MPM) relies on ultrafast laser-induced nonlinear optical processes, has the ability to detect cellular and subcellular microstructure of tissues and provide the convictive information on clinic diagnosis of colorectal adenocarcinoma. The objective of this study was to demonstrate MPM role in clinical diagnosis of colorectal adenocarcinoma. Firstly, we obtained the main four-layer structure including mucosa, submucosa, muscularis propria and fibrous membrane and detected spectral characteristics of each layer by employing MPM to investigate normal human rectum tissue. Then, we used MPM to identify normal colonic mucosa, hyperplastic polyps and tubular adenoma, and extract some diagnostic parameters such as the morphology of crypts, the content and number of mucin droplets of the scattered goblet cells, the features of epithelial cells nuclei. At last, based on colorectal adenoma-carcinoma sequence, we imaged the different stage during the development of colorectal adenocarcinoma including adenoma with low-grade and high-grade dysplasia, adenoma involving the muscularis mucosae and adenocarcinoma invading the submucosa. The results demonstrate that MPM has the ability to detect colorectal tissues and provide diagnostic evidences. With the advent of clinical portability of typical MPM, this technique has the potential to be applied in vivo to clinical diagnosis of colorectal adenocarcinoma non-invasively as well as monitoring the therapy response.