Development and Calibration of a Tissue Phantom for Cellular Imaging

  • Motivation
    Confocal Laser Endomicroscopy (CLE) has been reported as a powerful technique for intraoperative diagnosis of neoplastic tissue on humans. With the help of intravenously administrated Fluorescein Sodium (FS), which is commonly used as a dye, CLE is able to visualize the enlarged nuclei of tumorous cells. Currently, FS solution for clinical usage mainly comes in two concentrations, 10% and 1%, respectively. There have been researches on the optimal dosage of FS solution, where blinded experiments and subjective evaluation were applied. However, the contrast mechanism of this fluorescent method hasn’t been quantitatively studied. A tissue phantom could simulate the tissue environment for such investigation, where the concentration of FS, size and distribution of cells can be controlled. Therefore, developing a tissue phantom that can mimic the visualization of cells in CLE applications could be an approach to study the optical contrast of CLE.

    Project Description
    In this work, the student will develop a reproducible method for the realization of a tissue phantom, which matches the description in the motivation part. The material and specification of the phantom will be decided basing on the working principle and working environment of the CLE. Necessary investigation of image contrast of fluorescent imaging is required. In the end, the validation will be carried out to see if the produced phantom matches the requirements and planned specification.