Digital holographic (DH) microscopy is a digital high-resolution holographic imaging technique with the capacity of quantification of cellular conditions without any staining or labeling of cells. The unique measurable parameters are the cell number, cell area, thickness, and volume, which can be coupled to proliferation, migration, cell cycle analysis, viability, and cell death. The technique is cell friendly, fast and simple to use and has unique imaging capabilities for time-lapse investigations on both the single cell and the cell-population levels. The interest for analyzing specifically cell volume changes with DH microscopy, resulting from cytotoxic treatments, drug response, or apoptosis events has recently increased in popularity. We and others have used DH microscopy showing that the technique has the sensitivity to distinguish between different cells and treatments. Recently, DH microscopy has been used for cellular diagnosis in the clinic, providing support for using the concept of DH, e.g., screening of malaria infection of red blood cells (RBC), cervix cancer screening, and sperm quality. Because of its quick and label-free sample handling, DH microscopy will be an important tool in the future for personalized medicine investigations, determining the optimal therapeutic concentration for both different cancer types and individual treatments.
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