Applications of Fourier transform infrared imaging microscopy in histopathology

Infrared microspectroscopic imaging has the capabilities of generating spatial information as well as the standard spectroscopy. By taking advantage of the vibrational spectral signatures of biological components, such as lipids and proteins, one has have the capability of obtaining images of the intrinsic distribution of these molecules. The authors have applied this approach to analyze tissue sections of biomedical relevance in order to determine the potential of this application as an alternate approach histopathology. The advantage of this technique is that tissue need not be fixed or stained, contrast obtained from the intrinsic distribution of the biomolecular components. This technique provides considerable application for many histopathological applications and could result in the significant increase in the speed and resolution of pathological analyses, such as biopsies