A new method for processing and imaging of thin-needle core biopsy (TNCB) of resected tissue containing pancreatic cancer (animal and human) is proposed. TNCB specimens of 0.25mm diameter will be obtained by a custom-designed coring device, while larger 0.40mm cores will be taken with a new commercial biopsy needle. Corresponding fine needle aspirate (FNA) specimens will be taken at or alongside the TNCB sample sites. While maintaining TNCB tissue within a tube or microfluidic chamber, the specimen will be fixed, stained, and optically cleared. Absorption dyes of hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) will provide transmission image contrast for the morphological structure of cells and tissue.
Fluorescence dye will be imaged from various immunohistological targets, such as proteins expressed at the base epithelial membrane to help determine invasion and protein expression. Optical projection tomographic microscopy (OPTM) will be used to generate 3D multimodal images of biopsy tissue. Although the length of the tissue core will be longer than the microscope field of view (FOV), different regions of the tissue will be imaged and stitched together by image processing. Both 2D and 3D visualization of the entire TNCB specimen will be provided to a pathologist using a custom computer interface to manipulate the 3D dataset. Sensitivity and specificity of cancer diagnosis will be made using tissue-slice pathology as the gold standard. Comparative evaluation of pancreatic cancer diagnosis will be made between TNCB imaged with the OPTM versus conventional FNA. This new technique is expected not only to detect the presence of neoplastic cells but detect invasion of tissue by cancer cells.
