Two-photon fluorescence lifetime imaging on humans with multiphoton tomographs

What is it about?

A novel label-free clinical high-resolution imaging modality, called multiphoton FLIM tomography, is applied to volunteers and patients to diagnose skin cancer and dermatitis, to provide a tool for exact brain tumor surgery, to evaluate the efficiency of anti-ageing cremes and pharmaceutical drugs, and to study skin modifications during long-term space flights. FLIM provides information on the metabolism of intratissue cells by Optical Metabolic Imaging. Clinical FlIM is based on two-photon excited autofluorescence imaging by time-correlated single photon counting with picosecond temporal resolution.

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Why is it important?

Multiphoton tomography has the best spatial resolution of all clinical imaging modalities. The additional feature of FLIM provides a novel insight of the metabolism of intratissue cells. The review provides information on the history of clinical FLIM and current applications on humans, including patients suffering from skin cancer and brain cancer, as well as astronauts. Furthermore, skin aging and anti-ageing methods as well as the efficiency of pharmaceuticals can be evaluated by multiphoton FLIM. .