Quantitative phase microscopy for label-free evaluation of intestinal inflammation

摘要

In overview, for the example of digital holographic microscopy (DHM), we present quantitative phase imaging (QPI)-based characterization of inflammation in colonic tissue sections. Tissue density alterations are determined by the refractiveindex retrieval from quantitative DHM phase images. We show that the average tissue refractive index represents amarker that allows to distinguish between different layers of the intestinal wall and that the revealed tissue refractiveindex data correlated well with the severity of inflammation. In summary, QPI provides biophysical parameters for thequantification of inflammation in intestinal tissues and paves the way for future applications in terms of ‘‘digital pathology’’.