Multiphoton microscopic imaging of histological sections without hematoxylin and eosin staining differentiates carcinoma in situ lesion from normal oesophagus

Multiphoton microscopy (MPM) has become a powerful, important tool for tissues imaging at the molecular level. In this paper, this technique was extended to histological investigations, differentiating carcinoma in situ (CIS) lesion from normal oesophagus by imaging histological sections without hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining. The results show that the histology procedures of dehydration, paraffin embedding, and de-paraffinizing highlighted two photon excited fluorescence of cytoplasm and nucleolus of epithelial cell and collagen in stroma. MPM has the ability to identify the characteristics of CIS lesion including changes of squamous cells and full epithelium, identification of basement membrane, especially prominent nucleolus. The studies described here show that MPM has the potential for future retrospective studies of tumor staging by employing on histological section specimens without H&E staining.