Backscattering coherent Stokes Raman scattering (sCiSsoRS) for real-time cancer diagnostics

The gold-standard for cancer diagnosis is the pathological examination of Hematoxylin & Eosin (HE) stained tissue.

Though well adopted worldwide for the coloration of large numbers of cancer sections, the classical HE-staining procedure is unable to provide a fast-feedback to surgeons within less than 30min.

This latency compromises the efficiency and accuracy of any tumor resection with numerous negative impacts for the success of the surgery and patients health prospect.

Recently, the chemical-bond-specific image contrast provided by stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) was shown to be suitable for the generation of HE-like images.

However, the SRS signal fundamentally propagates forward and is absorbed in thick biopsies rending a SRS-based diagnosis impossible.

Furthermore, the SRS imaging speed is still too slow for the real-time determination of cancer borders in large specimen.Here, I want to resolve these obstacles by combining the non-linear optical contrast Coherent Stokes Raman Scattering (CSRS) with high illumination angles.

CSRS will permit for the HE-like image generation, but will direct the signal photons into the backward direction as a result of a unique momentum conservation law.

Backward CSRS will allow for the investigation of thick cancer samples and will enable technical solutions to boost the imaging speed that were never an option before.

Thus, the development of CSRS is not only a scientific breakthrough that circumvents the fundamental dogma of always forward scattered light but will provide HE-like images of thick samples as a real-time feedback to improve the success rate and time-efficiency of cancer surgery.